


Reflective

by 111 (Insert)



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
Genre: Brainwashing, Canon Related, Character Death, Fantasy, Growing Up, Multi, Parent Death, Past Lives, Tragedy, eventual hurt/comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:07:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 49,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24081046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Insert/pseuds/111
Summary: The boy was found on the outskirts of the king's forest with the morning dew gleaming in his wild hair. No one could have foretold how deeply the young prince would come to care for him.No one could have seen the fire burning away at him from within.
Relationships: Johan Andersen | Jesse Anderson/Yuuki Juudai | Jaden Yuki, Yubel/Yuuki Juudai | Jaden Yuki
Comments: 24
Kudos: 33





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I should make a few disclaimers first.
> 
> \- This can be read as a standalone ‘past life’ story largely based on season 3 of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. Sometimes the characters have different names, as they are their ‘past’ selves for the majority of the story.
> 
> \- This story contains massive spoilers for all of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. 
> 
> \- This story also contains **the death of a major character** and **the death of a parent**. Please take the warnings and tags into account!
> 
> \- Minus some edits for the later chapters, this story is also complete at roughly 40,000 words. I’m editing it between working on my other fics (mostly Crushed and Recursive), so I’ll hopefully be able to upload all of it relatively quickly. 
> 
> \- This contains eventual!Judai/Yubel and some Johan/Judai. It gets sort of OT3 at points.

\---

"Your Highness!"

As a flash of cobalt blue, the boy only ran faster through the maze of bushes, a split berry smearing its juice across the rich fabric of his tunic. "Come on! It was over here!" he called back, his companion grumbling in response like a castle cat being shoved out of a patch of warm light. Just  _ thinking  _ of the comparison was enough to make the boy laugh, a lively, ringing sound that made even the forest's proudest birds fall silent. "Ah, Yubel. You worry too much!"

"Or not  _ enough _ ," they shot back, and with a lucky swipe, they nabbed the trailing end of the prince's cloak. To an outsider, they would have made for a strange pair -- the shaggy-haired prince in a duelist's outfit, complete with a gem-studded shortsword attached to his belt, and his beautiful companion in the simpler, poorly stitched clothes of a pauper. A history of harsh training was told by the old scars winding over their sun-kissed hands and wrists. An affection shone when their green-blue eyes passed over the prince, who then pouted down at the muddy path. 

"Yubel…"

"You're going to be scolded for  _ that _ ," they observed, poking at the spreading berry stain. Loose, their dark hair fell out of place as they tilted their head, their high, aquiline features catching the thin morning light. 

"But… It won't be there for much longer…" The prince continued with renewed vigor, startling his companion as he stepped forward and, despite being the shorter of the two, bumped their noses together. "I promise, Yubel! I  _ promise  _ that it will be worth it! And don't worry about my dad, okay? I'll tell him not to yell at you!"

"... He's not going to yell at  _ me _ ," Yubel muttered, and the prince squeaked when Yubel leaned closer and nuzzled his cheek, their soft, lavender-like scent spreading. "But… If you promise not to  _ kick  _ when I drag you back to the castle, I'll agree to follow peacefully. Meaning, I won't- H-Hey!"

"Haha!! Yes! Yes!" the prince cried out, swinging from Yubel's shoulders. With a fighter's honed grace, they kept their balance, and their lower, dulcet tones joined in with the familiar ripples and chimes of the prince's laughter, itself a song that the forest around them knew and cherished.

Neither one of them had admitted yet that the delicate, unfurling warmth between them was love. It didn't fit the common usages of the word -- ‘love’ loudly sung about by the castle's bards, or whispered about in court. Regardless, they each  _ knew _ it was love, a love that was like a thread of a colour never seen before in their world. It slowly wound itself tighter and tighter over them both. They could not predict which shapes the looping thread would form next, and yet that uncertain future only made them feel giddy and alive.

Together, they tumbled through overgrown bushes and ran skillfully between knife-sharp ferns. In a myriad of greens and blues, the forest spread around them, a stillness permeating the early hour during which so much of the world remained at rest. To the young prince, the air crackled with possibility, with magic.

Earlier that morning, as more of the sun’s orange glow had spilled across the land, he had seen a pale, strange animal from his high tower in the castle. It had moved like a large cat, but for it to be  _ so  _ large was beyond anything he had ever imagined. It must have been a legendary beast! With a child's curiosity and zeal, he wanted to run after the fading pawprints of that strange, strange cat, and if anyone would have noticed him slipping out of the castle, of course it would have been Yubel -- his dearest friend who knew and saw so much. 

He had taken their wrist to stop himself from tripping over the dark roots and sticks below. Under the thick blanket of the forest's canopy, all was hushed and slowed except for their quick breaths and quicker strides.

"We're nearing the outskirts of the king's forest," Yubel quietly observed, their keen gaze darting between the looming trees and the shadows dragging behind them. A stick 'crunched' under the prince's boots as they entered the clearing, a shallow bowl of long grass flecked with the morning dew like thousands and thousands of pearls.

Sections of the grass had been flattened by another's steps, and Yubel, in silence, walked in front of the prince, keeping him back with an arm as taut as an iron shield, a tower shield that could have withstood any blow.

They drew closer to what lay at the center of the clearing, the figure that determined the tension gathering in the chilled air. Shouting, the prince burst forward, Yubel snatching desperately for his cloak and, gnashing their teeth, missing its embroidered edge.

"He's hurt!" the prince yelled as he dropped to his knees and with the gentle, aching hands of an earnest child, he brushed the stranger's bangs back from their wide, unblinking eyes -- two discs of brilliant green, their patterns obscured by the streaks of blood that ran over them like spiderwebs. Shaking, the prince called out again. "H-He needs a healer!"

"I don't know these injuries," Yubel muttered in response, watching the curved paths that the prince's pale hands made over the stranger's forehead.

The stranger was young, likely the same age as the prince, and his soft, rounded features were framed by his flyaway blue hair, cut in choppy layers and easily following the tugs of the faint breeze. His billowing white tunic was that of a commoner, as were his plain breeches and low boots with cracked heels. From a rope belt, a green pouch hung from his waist. To Yubel, the sheathed dagger appeared less as a tool for cutting branches and more as a weapon, their perception clouded by its proximity to the prince. Who they did love. So greatly. 

"Run to the castle. I'll remain here."

“No! You’re faster,” he shouted back, panic cutting across his amber eyes as he looked up from the unconscious boy below. “Yubel,  _ please _ . I have my sword! I’ll be okay, so…” He smiled broadly, and it made Yubel look away, their analytical mind whirling. And then, finally-

“I’m tying his hands first.”

“ _ What _ ?! Why?”

“Because I don’t  _ know  _ him,” Yubel snarled back, and, crouching down, they unlatched their own belt and then used it to neatly bring the stranger’s wrists together. Next, they took his knife, clutching it tightly. “If anyone comes to the clearing, I want you to leave him and run.”

“But-”

They took off at a dead sprint, becoming just a  _ blur  _ that snaked its way further and further away from the clearing, and no messenger, no trained scout, could have rivaled their speed. Careless branches struck their bare arms. They felt none of it, their feet barely touching the earth.

And the prince felt their absence, his wide eyes trained on the gap in the trees that had once bracketed their jagged shadow. He felt it deeply, and yet he still had the courage to focus again on the strange boy, the morning drew gleaming in his wild hair and drops of blood beading below his unblinking, glassy eyes. To the prince, the injuries made no sense. It was as if the stranger had seen something so horrible, so  _ blinding _ , that it had knocked him out and made his very body rebel.

That was when the boy stirred, and the prince carefully moved his head into his lap, uncaring of the damp trails left behind. “It’s okay. You’re safe,” the prince hurriedly whispered, his smile worried but clear nonetheless, and the stranger blinked once, his pupils growing larger and larger. Deep inside the black, something delicate sparkled.

A scream rang out.

Desperately clawing at his own skin, the stranger covered his eyes with his palms and wailed and wailed. The prince was there, tender in how he coaxed those bound hands to relax, to stop drawing those parallel red lines.

“I-It’s okay! I’m here, and you’re safe, I promise.”

“I-It… It  _ hurts _ ,” were the first words that the stranger desperately ground out, a crystal-like tear escaping and sliding down. He whimpered, a heartbreaking sound, and the prince drew circles over his raised tendons. 

“Can I help? I’ll try, if you’ll let me.”

“I… I-It’s too bright…"

The prince quickly cut a strip of cloth from his cloak. "Okay. This might help," he said, energy brimming in his voice, and the stranger, in small, jerking movements, let his fingers be moved away. Slowly, the blindfold was put in place, the fabric looped twice over his injured eyes. And, slowly, the stranger began to breathe easier. He flopped down against the dark grass of the field, the prince settling in by his side -- curious, concerned. 

"Okay… This is a new experience," the stranger observed, the good humor turning his grimace into a wide smile that, to the prince, was like sunlight. It made him sit up, the sight riveting. "You know, this isn't how I imagined my morning going."

"Uh, what did you think would happen? Why are you here?"

"I'm from Osternia," the stranger explained, his grin remaining. "The village isn't that far from here. Less than a day by foot, if you don't get lost like I usually do. Anyways, I heard that some poachers wanted to go after this rare panther, so I had to try and stop them. They...would have taken her hide, hoping to sell it."

"That's horrible…"

"Yeah, I thought so too. By the time I got here, they had her cornered, but I used my trick to scare them off. It's...lucky that I made it in time."

"What trick?" the prince asked, eagerly enough that the stranger laughed.

"Ah, I have this whistle that sounds like an angry bear. 'Guess those poachers didn't want to take their chances!" Shrugging, he continued. "I saw her off, and I told her to stay away from people for awhile, maybe go to the mountains instead. After that, I'm...not sure what happened. I was on my back, my ears were ringing, and my eyes…"

"Don't push yourself," the prince blurted out, leaning forward a little. "My friend is coming back with help."

"Okay. And…thank you."

He shook his head, the gesture unseen. "I'm sorry about your hands. Yubel thinks that it's the right decision, which… I understand, but…"

"Ah, don't worry. The way I see it, you're looking out for me, and that's all that matters right now." And, with his smile growing even broader, even brighter than before, he then added, "By the way, I'm Johael. Pleased to meet you, my savior."

"I haven't done much," the prince mumbled, kneeling next to his new friend. "Um, my name is-"

The sharp whinnying of horses cut across the clearing, as did the falls of Yubel’s footsteps, heavier than before because they, through a combination of their wits and willpower, had convinced the castle’s finest healer to let them carry him. Smaller than the riders, the duo had carved the quicker path through the tightly knit beginnings of the forest, and, panting slightly, Yubel bent at the knee while the elderly man in the flowing white robes climbed off of their back.

By the time the heaving guard horses crossed over to their group, all tossing their heads and stamping down the brittle grass, the healer had examined Johael’s eyes with careful, practiced hands and the aid of a mechanical tool, the lens cut from a rare gem. The prince hovered by his shoulders anxiously, and Yubel -- stoic and silent -- watched everything as a natural sentinel would. 

Sighing, the healer turned to address the prince. “Your highness, it is my recommendation that you return to the castle. You shouldn’t be outside the walls like this.”

“But what about Johael?” he asked, going so far as to take the boy’s hands in his own. At his insistence, the belt had been removed, and with the blindfold back in place, Johael seemed calm, the spasms of pain growing further and further apart. 

“...Well, the king can’t say I didn’t  _ try _ ,” the healer mumbled after a long-suffering sigh. “This boy has suffered from an attack that I don’t know the name or purpose of. The symptoms are similar to those of an experimental weapon once proposed to the king in a time of war, but its design was found to be against our natural laws and therefore impossible. To simplify it, the design would have used a large convex mirror and the energy from charged crystals to temporarily blind an opponent. However, the strength of the weapon would have been like a beam of sunlight in practice -- ineffective and  _ pleasant _ , if anything. Wisely following his advisors, the king rejected such a wasteful endeavour.”

“So someone...attacked Johael with  _ that _ ?” Whirling around, the prince tightened his hold on Johael’s hands. Although Johael had the strength to sit up, he did seem, intentionally or not, to lean against the kneeling prince. To some of the guards, they were dreamlike figures -- similar in a compelling, undeniable way like two halves of an ancient key. Each boy’s angles fit those of the other. The prince, a child of long summer days who had tripped and ran alongside the many creeks of this forest, was the warm, red-toned mirror to the greens and blues of the stranger, the shadows clinging to him differently, hesitantly.

“No, your highness. That is impossible. No kingdom could produce this weapon. Therefore, I cannot say  _ what  _ happened, especially considering his...recollection of the events.”

“Hey, hey. I’m not lying," Johael stated, cringing a little. "I was just standing there, watching the panther disappear and wishing her the best, and… Okay,  _ maybe  _ I was cursing those poachers a bit, but that's all I remember, really!"

That was truly all the boy knew, his honest thoughts unsullied by vice or greed or malice of any kind. He remembered nothing of the light that had poured into him, the shock of white searing his eyes. It danced through his veins. It learned the shapes and contours of his chest, of his skull. To it, he was something divine, a vessel of the purest crystal through which its many colours could become brighter than ever before. He was a rare and lovely prism that could never be replicated, uncontested in its perfection. The light now pulsed in tandem with the beats of his genuine, human heart. 

Years would pass before the light began to split the boy's memories, overriding his consciousness to spread the destruction that it craved, that it  _ existed  _ for.

Years would pass before it slowly crept into his mind, and, therefore, that morning as he lay on the damp grass with the young, radiant prince holding his hands, no one saw the chaos flickering inside of him: repressed and restrained but undeniably, terrifyingly real.

\---

A masterwork in gleaming white stones and pitched roofs in sapphire blue, the grand castle of Alanorn overlooked the green knots of the great forest, the bustling roads of its neighbouring harbour city, and the glittering surface of the ocean, the shore a curve of white sands that shone in even the thinnest of light. But today, the skies were clear, the flowers all in full bloom, and within the high, protective walls of this place of myth and magic, the young, mischievous prince was climbing the decorative siding of a noble's residence and clumsily hauling himself inside through an open window. The shutters rattled. 

The elderly healer -- more than familiar with such antics as the weeks passed, the Osternian boy remaining under his care and gradually regaining his sight -- tightened the dark wrappings and called out, "Your Highness, this concern isn't necessary. It's simply a check-up."

"Really?! But Johael missed my sword practice!" the prince whined, and the healer's patient smiled widely. While he couldn't 'watch' the prince practice yet, the thick blindfold obscuring most of the outside world, he could listen to the clangs of refined metal, the quick breaths of the fighters, and the soft falls of their footsteps as their dances continued. Of course, more than anything else, he loved hearing the prince call out in victory. 

Words for the feeling were far too difficult. He loved the ripples of warmth that followed the prince's earnest laughter. He had yet to see the prince's face beyond a blur of russet hair and flickering reds and yellows, and as the healer neatly tightened the blindfold, Johael’s smile softened at the corners. It became beautiful like a shy flower in spring, unaccustomed to the gentle warming against its petals and only carefully, incrementally letting itself bloom.

The connection between the boys sparkled and  _ breathed  _ like one forged by magic. It almost hummed at times, a resonance of souls. 

The prince’s guardian chose that moment to make their presence known, shaking their head as they pushed themselves away from one of the ornate desks in the crowded room. The prince, whose battle senses were raw and unhoned, flinched and knocked over a pile of scrolls. Sighs and giggles were heard in equal measure. 

"W-What?! How did you beat me here!?"

"I knew where you were going," Yubel replied, and after a quick glance at the healer, they put a thin but calloused hand on Johael's shoulder, directing him up. "If you'd like to, you can listen to my practice with the royal guards. I assure you that it is the more...exciting option."

" _ What _ ?! H-Hey, Yubel! That's not fair!" Spinning in place, the prince puffed out of his chest. "In five more months, I'll be old enough to practice with Yubel and the others! So… Be ready for that!"

“Ah, the anticipation is torture,” Yubel replied, deadpan and making the prince sputter helplessly while Johael quietly thanked the healer for his time and care. 

That night, Johael revealed another side of himself to the prince and his quiet, earnest guardian. Johael’s heart was wonderful in how strongly it beat for others. Even as a small child with clumsy hands, he had returned fallen birds to their nests and defended abandoned kittens from the cruelty of others, rarely acknowledging the stones thrown at him. 

“You’re  _ leaving _ ?”

Looking away from the stunned prince, Johael ran a hand up the back of his neck. With Yubel, they were alone on the ramparts, the fading sunlight in gold and orange. “You heard the messenger too. The warden needs my help back home, so…I gotta answer, right?”

“But… Why?” the prince asked, blinking back tears. 

“At the orphanage, the warden has, oh, forty-something kids to look after, and, yeah, I cause her a lot of trouble… I am sorry about doing that,” he added, and he continued before the prince could interrupt. “The world’s still blurry, but I can see well enough to get back along the main road. It’ll be okay, Jurian.”

“You’re bad with titles, aren’t you?” Yubel muttered, sarcastic and yet kind in their own way. Johael understood, of course. His expression turned bashful. The fading sunlight caressed it, bringing out new shades of warm gold, and the gold became flushed with pale red when the prince surged forward and dragged him into a tight hug, the two opposing halves that the two boys represented becoming, for that one moment, united. By throwing out an arm, the prince dragged Yubel in next, and as three, they stayed interlocked. 

“You  _ have  _ to come back,” the prince eventually mumbled, the sound muffled and distorted by the sweep of the distant waves. Seabirds cried out. “Or… Yubel and me will come find you! Osternia isn’t far at all!”

“Ah, don’t worry. We’ll figure something out,” Johael replied, chuckling at the grumpy ‘huff’ from Yubel -- their sense for trouble was, as usual, very accurate. “Well, no matter what, I’ve gotta come back to the castle and see what my rescuers look like! This one guard keeps going on and on about how Yubel here is ‘a lily of a rare and entrancing beauty’. ...Or, well, that’s what I  _ think  _ he’s saying.”

“Shut it,” Yubel grumbled back, ruffling Johael’s flyaway hair. It made him yelp and duck closer to the prince, smushing their cheeks together. No more tears followed those drying in star-burst shapes on the prince’s rich tunic, and his shoulders had stopped shaking.

“Is...that a promise?”

“Yeah, you bet!”

With a shallow nod, the prince looked up, Yubel’s arm over his shoulders easing, and he could see beyond the veil. He knew Johael’s eyes were a vibrant, rich green. He wondered about it, about how the blue undertones might change and sparkle if Johael were to smile like he did now.

\---

Although the prince had yet to learn this truth. The continent itself was much like a well-worn game board with its remaining pieces -- kingdoms, each bearing the responsibility of many, many lives -- on the edge of all-out war. The peace negotiated by the king was tentative and, in certain circles, spoken of as if it needed to be contested, soon. And it was within this churning, uncertain atmosphere that Johael walked out of the main gates and into the mist of a brisk, grey morning, all the while waving at the pair on the walls. Heraldic banners pulsed with the wind, carrying with it the salt smell of the ocean. 

The wheel of fate turned faster, its kaleidoscope of churning images whirling on and on. 

That very night, the sorcerers came down from their towers, all pale and quivering from the severity of their visions. The prince, innocent and beguiling as he was, had to be the chosen one -- the born carrier of the Gentle Darkness, the herald who would face the ravaging, ageless Light. In his throne room, the king listened with an unmoving expression even as his heart began to break -- the queen had passed so long ago that the prince had not even the shard of a memory to hold. Despite the wars in distant lands and murmurs of approaching violence, he had hoped always to keep the prince from pain. That night, the hope became weak: a thin, pale bird exhausted by its unending flight. 

But it did not die, curling in on itself with a final whimper. No. Not when the king's will raged within him. 

"What can be done to protect him?" he asked, and those congregated knew the whispers of dark magic. Some had listened so greedily, and the cruel wisdom they held would have outraged some rulers. Others would have recoiled in fear, stunned as natural laws were spoken of as barriers to be manipulated rather than absolutes. 

As midnight approached, the king gave the sorcerers a solemn nod. He knew there could be only one candidate -- someone unfailing and true, the depths of their love unknowable. 

The night bore its morning. The moon vanished from the sky, and an agreement was made between a king and a sentinel, the dear friend of the prince who would have died for his grace a thousand times. A million. Every second for all of the ages, if only the prince would live. 

Yes. It had been decided. 

Yubel would be cleaved in half. They would suffer far under the castle, in the dungeons where screams could echo and burn but never escape to the surface. They would emerge as a new creation, a fortress of scales and skin and fire that, brimming to the surface, could raze fertile lands to the ground and choke the sun with its smoke. They became an inhuman knight of legend, one who had eaten the dragon and, in turn, been devoured by it from the inside.

\---

"Dad…?"

"Yes, my son?"

The prince had found him in the royal archives, the king unrolling a sprawling map in red and brown ink against treated animal skin. The guards remained outside. The bronze doors were closed, and the prince approached with his determination bared. The king could not yet meet that gaze. 

"Do you know where Yubel is? It’s past midday, and I can’t find them anywhere. It’s… It’s not right,” he finished as a whisper, and the king resolutely smoothed out the map with two metal blocks. 

“They have agreed to a procedure.”

“P-Procedure?” Staggering back, the prince leaned against the engraved door, his shaking fingers catching absently in the design. Steadfast, the king continued, the rustle of his cape pushing against the thickness of the silence. He adjusted the map again.

“All of this is to protect you. Yubel did not hesitate. They will do this for your sake.”

With wide, unseeing eyes, the prince pounded on the doors until the guards on the other side opened them. He staggered into the gilded hall. He clipped stone walls and arches as he ran, pumping his arms wildly and willing his body to become faster, to become that of a hero. When he blinked, he saw Yubel with the wind rippling through their dark hair and their eyes creased gently at the corners, and the weight of his love constricted him. Nightmares wanted to pierce through that beloved image because if someone had hurt Yubel… If Yubel wouldn’t be  _ here _ anymore…

No, the prince could not imagine it, and he outran the startled guards by the main gates, heading for a secret entrance to the lower levels. Places of cobwebs and crumbling stone, leading further down into chambers with fresh lumber for their beams and complicated machines resting in their corners. Laboratories. Caverns for alchemists and spellweavers. He knew he was close when suddenly torchlight flickered ahead of him, the flames an enchanted white. He burst into the room, and-

He fought against the guards who swarmed in, summoned by the surgeons who were- He could not comprehend it, swinging madly against steel swords and shields while Yubel whimpered. They told him to leave with a pain so audible that, staggered, he lost his balance. He fell to the floor, a pommel pressed hard against his stomach.

Exhaustion and pain tried to keep him under, his vision gone as the guards dragged him from this detestable place, reeking of bile and sulfur and hoarding screams within its walls. Although the prince wanted nothing more than to return to it, than to pull Yubel off of that  _ slab  _ and break the spinning mechanisms of those tools. 

Again and again, Yubel told him to leave. 

Again and again and again, until he sank within himself, lost with this reality’s cruel maze. With the hoarse shouts of the guards behind him, he blinked and found himself on his feet, bolting as fast as he could from Alanorn castle. It loomed, a citadel from a nightmare.

Crawling, he dragged himself under the thorned bushes that had grown too high for even the greatest knights’ chargers to jump, and he crashed through the wilds, hot tears streaming down his face and making the horrible, unceasing reality blur more and more. 

From exhaustion, he fell, and below were the grey-white veined rocks of an oceanside cliff, the spray falling over him and beading water on his scratched arms and legs. Alone, he wept, and when a strange, elongated shape flitted over the rocks, he froze. A scent like dried lavender drifted through the air, although it was undercut by the bitter one of ash. The prince was not afraid. He tilted his head back, and the shadow passed over him again, spread wings slicing through the vibrant sky. The darkness within him called out, and when the angular, shadowed creature dropped lower -- smooth as a leaf drifting with a weak breeze -- the prince recognized their face. He knew the turquoise-green of their left eye. 

Yubel knelt before him, their head bowed, and the prince took their clawed, scaled hand in his own with a tenderness that made Yubel’s soft lips curve into a smile. Unfamiliar, sharper features were segmented by the contours that the prince knew and loved so honestly. His dear friend had returned as a collection of contrasts, a collision of scales and flesh with all the seams visible and aching. He ran his fingertips over knuckles that were harder than iron and flecked with black darker than obsidian. The brilliance and detail of a cut opal were in every new scale. Spikes rose from their hips and shoulders, and the prince caressed their hand gently. He met the vivid orange of their new eye, his own gaze imploring.

The crashing of the waves against the rocks could have been continents away. It could have been from another time, every rasp and pulse of it so distant. They orbited each other, curious and hesitant. Yubel had changed. Their fused soul was like a broken crystal, the imperfections filled with a dark metal and cooled to create something as memorizing as it was new.

On that cliff, with his touch on Yubel’s hand extending up to their wrist, the prince swore to love them for all eternity. As he spoke, the thread that had bound them both tightened, becoming unbreakable. Tilting his head forward, he pressed a chaste kiss to their cheek and then two more to each of the tear-shaped marks extending down over their warm skin. 

\---

To the prince, his guardian had a different kind of beauty now -- like a mountain range with sharp peaks and ridges veined with otherworldly colours. Their shock of white hair was like snow. The myriad purples, coppers, and greys that banded their changed body were rare minerals under the veil of night.

To others, they had become an unnatural beast, a golem made by an alchemist gone mad. They were the aftermath of opposing lives being spliced together and made to breathe again. When their blade-like shadow first brushed the castle walls, there was panic. The villagers below formed a mob.

From the prince, there was a declaration of his love that echoed and echoed down the streets, the king looking on from the walls with a concern that, steeled as it was, still shone from his guarded eyes. And thus, Yubel once again became the prince’s living shadow, and the slightest rustle of their tapered wings or ‘click’ of their talons against stone was enough to make proud, battle-hardened soldiers wilt in place. Nobles trembled in fear when the orange of their gaze shone like a sun in miniature.

Like snow melting in the morning light, such fear gradually began to disappear from view. The easy way that the prince embraced his shadow stopped hatred from festering. The purity of his love was calming, as were the glimpses of Yubel’s familiar gestures, shown through longer, stronger limbs and yet still similar nonetheless. 

The first assassination attempt against the prince was brazenly carried out in an afternoon marketplace with archers high on the walls and guards swarming in at the first flash of a steel dagger. Although none of them could have dreamed to match Yubel’s speed, their claws tight around a weak, malleable neck while the villain gasped and gasped on the ground, thrashing helplessly under the glare that promised a slow, agonizing death. And, yes, the show of Yubel’s agility made parts of that old fear creep in again like an unwanted frost, but greater than that was the relief felt by all who loved the prince.

If Yubel was a knight, then he was the lord to whom they had pledged their fealty. If they were a dragon, then he was the treasure that they worshipped in the cloying dark.

\---

As a force in this world, the power the young prince held was akin to the darkness which entangles young roots and allows them to burrow deeper into the earth. It sought to aid others. It was a welcomed shadow over the tired horse of a desperate traveller. It was a soft night that eased troubled minds to sleep, and it was the great weaver of dreams.

For the prince, his friendship with the boy from the village was the subject of many dreams, all simple recreations of how they had met in the clearing -- the morning dew beading on Johael’s wild hair and clinging to the thin collar of his white tunic. Sometimes, he imagined seeing the panther’s tail swish as the animal moved deeper into the forest for protection. Its fur was the colour of rose quartz.

One spring day -- as he turned over rocks on the beach while Yubel stood perfectly still like a slash of black and purple left behind by the previous night -- the prince found that, no, he couldn’t wait any longer. He had to know more about Johael. The very thought of losing Yubel had given him a new and terrible understanding of what an absence could be.

“He hasn’t answered any of my letters…”

“Perhaps you’re simply being impatient,” Yubel drawled, quirking an eyebrow ridge when the prince kicked at the sand. “Ah, I take that back. You are  _ certainly  _ being impatient, my dear.”

Pouting, he crouched down and pushed the sand back in place, grains over his clenched fingers. “Osternia hasn’t moved…”

“True.”

“We could get there and back pretty quickly…”

Sighing, Yubel stalked closer, all demonic grace and bright eyes. “In the wilds, I can watch how nature moves. Predators flee from my scent, and the approaches of other animals are both obvious and clumsy. However, human beasts are not nearly as predictable. We have to be cautious.”

Small crabs bravely climbed over the straps of the prince’s sandals. Amused, the prince watched the procession, his pout fading into an easy smile.

“I know you’re worried about me, Yubel. You’re worried about others trying to hurt me again,” he said, and their scent reached him -- deep and smokey, laced with something bitter that nonetheless calmed his heart. As revenge for past conflicts, many outside the castle wanted to see the king weakened, and kidnapping or harming his son were methods that they considered and, in some cases, approved of. Magic users, spurned on by the rumors of the Gentle Darkness being found, were another unpredictable faction.

“To venture so far from the castle, we would also need the king’s approval,” they observed, and the prince snorted at that, the crabs, bored by the terrain, dropping back onto the sand and continuing towards the shallow waves. “But, my dear, don’t forget the promise Johael made. He will come back.”

“Of course I haven’t forgotten  _ that _ ,” he said, a little chiding, and he shot up to his feet. In shades of auburn and gold, he was a rich flame against the blue of the water. “Still, I… Well, I just want to see him again!”

“You will.”

At the prince’s unhappy grumble, Yubel took another step, and the prince let out an undignified ‘squawk’ when they swooped down and pressed a kiss to his forehead. His bangs were ruffled next, claws that could have split a battle axe remaining delicate and light. Yubel chuckled.

“But,  _ ah _ , what kind of impression will you give our dear Johael when he returns? That of an arrogant prince who skips his lessons?”

“H-Hey!”

Effortlessly, Yubel spun away, leaving uneven marks in the sand, and their chuckles turned to high, chiming laughs when the prince gave pursuit. The battle ended with them rolling in the pale sand, the rest of the world absent and still, and with a shy turn of his head, the prince kissed Yubel’s teardrop marks and let more and more of the day fade into night.

\---


	2. Chapter 2

\---

It was in a different spring that the prince first passed by the wooden fences bordering the broad fields of Osternia.

At fifteen, he had become lanky and moved with such vibrant energy that even the grandest, heaviest robes could never have stifled it completely. His hair fell in wild shapes, the strands rich in their red-brown tone, and many would whisper of how his gaze crackled with magic. Others would retell in the hushed tones how _precise_ he was during his duels within the castle, his practice sword tracing impossible arcs as if it truly had become weightless or had joined with the matter of the prince’s dominant hand.

Apple blossoms let their petals drift loose, and many fell on the dirt path in front of the royal guards. When a soft shape in pink-white drifted onto the mane of his horse, the prince smiled for a beat before turning back to the captain at his side. 

“So… You’re sure all of this is really necessary?”

“Bandits frequent this area, as do mercenaries and poachers,” the captain stiffly replied, making the prince frown a little. It was a persuasive look. “Your highness, we simply don’t have any other choice if you insist on visiting Osternia!”

“Hmm… I could try racing you there,” the prince answered, tossing his head.

Those first letters from Johael had been accompanied by the heat of summer. In blocky characters, Johael had admitted that he had only recently learned how to write alongside the other orphans, and the prince had been enraptured with every stroke and blot of ink, Yubel gently leaning over him to light the candles when it grew too dark. From there, Johael had told him about many small adventures, such as sneaking out of his second-story room in the middle of the night to find owls in the forest and lift their forgotten flight feathers from the needle-matted earth. In the third letter, Johael had drawn a diagram of his top-secret method for climbing back into his room before he was called on for his morning chores, unnoticed of course. Each new character illuminated more and more details of Johael's life. Some made the prince laugh, after which he'd inevitably find Yubel and read the relevant passages out to them.

Some made him angry. 

He really didn't understand how anyone could be mean to Johael.

If Jurian had been king, he would have immediately given his friend land, a court title, and a royal crest when Johael first sent him a letter with a brief, restrained mention of his conflicts with the other villagers. 'Orphan' was not an insult, and it did not mean that someone was 'worthless'. Without hesitation, the prince had written back, _'Those people don't know anything. It's their loss, since they can't see who you really are.'_ When the prince had brought up the subject with his father, the result had been a stern lecture on “favouritism” and “the stability of the class system” and so on and so on. 

Naturally, the most common subject of their letters was the little scrap of distance between them -- under a day by foot, negligible compared to the sprawling expanse of the continent. With his father's maps, the prince had seen the immense scale of the rolling mountains and shallow valleys that continued on and on. The larger wooden indicators -- representative of kingdoms or armies -- would have fit over both Alanorn castle and all of Osternia.

This was the world as his father saw it, and yet his own was of a different scale. It had room in it for letters crumpled by a post bag. 

After two years, those letters had only made that desire to see Johael -- to really, _really_ see him -- stronger, and as the prince and his guards continued along the stretch of road, he found himself shaking from the nearness of it all. Even if he searched, he could not find the words to express the feeling. 

Instead -- throwing the captain a winning smile and then glancing up at the crooked shape of Yubel against the spotless blue of the sky -- the prince took off. His trusted bay was unchallenged as she accelerated, galloping hard and kicking up clumps of dirt. Above, Yubel’s wings drew in, a hawk preparing to dive, and it was with a burst of laughter that the prince rode into the humble village, the streak of his red cape as vivid and stark as an invader's banner. Startled villagers tripped over each other, the horse’s pleased whinny ringing out as she slowed to a trot. Despite the captain’s jaded views of Osternia, the village itself was neatly kept, the modest streets swept and bordered by houses with dark timber supports and white plaster walls, most with flowers spilling out of their window boxes and small, modest murals painted by the doors. Although, the prince himself was too busy looking for a familiar face in the gathering crowd to take in the scenery. He was so preoccupied that he flinched at the sharp clicks of the approaching guard horses’ hooves.

“Y-Your highness!”

“See? I won,” the prince said, winking, and the captain sputtered. 

What happened next was the wheel of fate deciding, in a rare turn, to be very, very kind. It allowed for an encounter worthy of the prince’s many heroic dreams.

“Thief! Thief! S-Someone, stop him!”

With an expert flick of the reins, the prince was _gone_ , the mare’s hooves glinting like arrows set loose over a battlefield, and, directing her left, the prince burst through an alley and into the next street. In muddied robes over light armor, two figures were attempting to escape on foot. A shopkeeper ran after them with tears streaming from her blazing eyes, and the onlookers would struggle later to describe just how the prince _moved_. From the rushing mare, the prince jumped and, without unsheathing his longsword, tackled the nearest thief to the ground. As a whirl of red, he rose to confront the second, smiling as he quickly assessed the man's thin, leather-like armor and rusted broadsword. 

“So, you wouldn’t happen to feel like coming along quietly, would yah?” the prince called out, and when the grizzled man only tightened his hold on the broadsword’s grip, he let out a low whistle. “Alright then. If it’s a duel you want, then I’d be happy to play along.”

With clenched teeth, the thief stiffened, and the prince could see the motions of the charge before it happened. It was so clumsy that Yubel -- a flicker of shadow in his peripheral vision -- didn’t drift any closer, maintaining their perch on a nearby building as the prince dove towards the ground, rolled once, and then drove the pommel of his sword into the thief’s stomach. A beat passed, and then the man crumpled, groaning as his knees hit the ground.

“That doesn’t count as drawing my sword. See? Most of it’s still in the sheath,” he said, craning his head back to address his friend who, like an oversized weathervane, had become very still -- minus the flickers of annoyance on their face, of course. Distracted by the thieves and the hero in the red cloak, the villagers hadn’t seemed to register their presence.

Although, there remained another thief, as of yet unseen but angered, incensed by the sight of the stolen coins scattered carelessly below his companions. With a hooked dagger, the third thief approached the prince. 

The third thief did not reach him. The thief would never have reached him as long as Yubel drew breath, but there was no need for them to unleash their strength, not when they tracked the motions with a dragon's revealing gaze.

The wild rush forward -- dagger eager and poised to kill -- ended when a different boy burst through the crowd and, swinging a longsword up in an extended arc, met the blade with a shriek of metal on metal. The dagger was ripped from the thief’s hand, flying uselessly across the street and clattering to the ground, and the boy slowly raised the longsword higher, forcing his opponent to yield while the prince -- who watched with unblinking eyes that shone like polished copper -- felt his chest tighten.

The loose tunic fell away from Johael’s bare wrists, and he must have still been healing, a strip of thin, white cloth wrapped neatly over his eyes. When Johael looked back over his shoulder, his smile became wider than it had ever been before.

“J-Johael!”

“Hey! I didn’t know you were- Gah!”

The force of the hug almost made Johael lose his balance, and the guards who, dutifully, bound the thieves’ arms and legs with rope found it difficult to focus, to look away from the prince’s enraptured expression. In opposing shades of gold and silver, the two young swordsmen fit together in an indefinable way, and Johael, shy as he was, still drew the prince closer to him. Their laughter rang out as bells.

\---

“W-Wait. You can’t be serious!”

“Uh… You alright there, Johael?”

“You’re a _prince_?!” he blurted out, and Jurian -- lying next to him on the side of a rolling hill, the guards’ horses like wooden toys in the distance -- could only chuckle at that. 

“Hey, hey… Don't forget that you spent, what, a couple of _weeks_ hearing people call me ‘your highness’.”

“...Oh. R-Right.”

"Plus there's a royal seal on all of my letters…"

"I-I thought you were just...fancy."

Lightly, the prince batted his arm, and Johael shook his head in amazement, tossing his shaggy hair. Stray seeds and bits of grass clung to the thick strands, and with such visions of calm green around them, the two friends fell into an easy conversation. Overheard, Yubel circled, the greatest of the hawks flitting over that stretch of faultless blue.

“Does...it still hurt?”

At first, Johael did not understand, tilting his head to the side, but then he perked up and tapped the cloth knowingly. To the prince, his smile remained a fascinating, confusing thing. “No, not really. It’s just that I don’t take direct sunlight very well. Everything kinda...blurs together. I can follow movements just fine, so the cloth doesn’t interfere with everyday stuff. Actually, I think I’ve gotten used to it by now.”

“You should come back with me and Yubel. For good.”

Jurian had not considered the words in advance. They had naturally followed his last breath, because Johael didn't need to stay here. Not anymore.

“Ahh, well…” Folding in on himself, he turned away for a moment, and the prince waited, the fresh air losing its crisp edge. “Here, I’m...still something of a troublemaker. I owe the warden a lot.”

“Trust me, you can cause a lot of trouble in the castle, if you’re worried about missing out.”

“That’s...not what I meant,” he admitted, and he continued in a brighter voice. “While I'd never trade away my ability to understand animals, it’s...hard sometimes. If I wrote to you about all the fights I got into, I'd run out of materials pretty quickly."

“Johael…”

“I want to keep helping out. I haven’t done enough. Like… People still throw rocks at the doves sometimes, or they push their horses too hard. They...really shouldn’t. And...there's how the kids at the orphanage are treated on the streets. More rocks, and more...of the same problems."

“I’ll wait for you.” Startled, Johael looked over, and their stares met. Both open. Both mirrored in their honesty. “After all, you _still_ haven’t visited us at the castle, and a promise is a promise, right?”

“I...also haven’t really seen your faces yet,” he admitted, soft as a whisper, and the day rolled on -- cerulean, dazzling as a gem below sunrise. They sparred by a creek with the dappled shadows of the overhanging trees dragging over their tired limbs and their matching grins that defied the dimming light. For Johael, Yubel’s new silhouette was a source of fascination, and they noticed, of course, how the gentle first touch of his fingertips to their claws mirrored that of the prince. It quelled the brief unrest in their fused heart, a dragon’s instincts raging against a human’s memories.

Night drew in, the guards pacing uneasily near the creek’s widest point, and the boy reached back behind his head, feeling at the knot in the cloth, and yet he did not take it off. 

“A promise is a promise. I can do my own waiting,” he repeated, bumping shoulders with the prince. From their duels, both were tired in a satisfying way, and the distance between them was malleable. To the prince, so much of this felt like a dream, and he laughed up at the first stars, brilliant against the cloth of the night.

“Aha, so you _are_ sentimental…”

“What sight could be greater than a prince and his sentinel in a big, imposing castle?”

“...Why does it sound like you’re making fun of me and Yubel?”

“Hey, hey. Don’t misinterpret me!”

“Maaaaybe we need another duel to sort this out…”

\---

Of course, as the boy grew and learned more of the tangled world around him, the light inside him peered out too -- using his eyes and, far too often, making everything so bright and so _confusing_ for the unknowing vessel. Through him, the Light gained a new radiance, and although it was a consciousness that had fought the Gentle Darkness for untold years, it found itself forming a very strange and very new plan.

For that plan to be followed perfectly, it needed more time. It sank further and further into the living matter of the boy's body, as if it and Johael were truly inseparable. Hidden as it was, it could still be driven out but only through true combat, and wasn't combat such a perilous thing?

\---

From that point in time, the prince traveled frequently alongside his father in royal processions to other gilded castles, featuring the occasional run through a marketplace or quick escape from the guards. In turn, the orphan boy found himself hanging around merchants and their rich convoys as hired help.

In truth, Johael never would have mustered the courage to join the first group without the prince's hurried letters, describing the spires of distant towers and the extravagant parades that had welcomed them. Jurian had lit a fire in his heart. Those letters had made clear why, ridiculous as it seemed, Johael hesitated again and again to make the day-long journey to the castle at Alanorn.

Johael knew that he wanted to fulfill that promise as a stronger person than he was now. It was a desire so fierce that acknowledging it had hurt, and yet it could not be denied. Not anymore.

The prince's latest letter had an unfamiliar scent trapped within its fibers. In the final fold of the letter, a dried flower had rested. A type Johael had never seen before. It needed a warm climate to blossom.

Thinking of the prince and the guardian at his side, Johael had been quick to set off on his own smaller journey. The money he earned would benefit the warden and the orphanage she strained to keep open. He had hoped that, if nothing else, the gesture would change how harshly the villagers spoke of the orphanage -- as if its existence was shameful, using resources for the benefit of 'hopeless, forgotten children'. Those insults usually extended to the odd mixture of injured farm animals that Johael and the younger children let graze in the nearby meadow and housed in an abandoned barn, the roof caved-in. Ever since Jurian and Yubel had visited with a regiment of armored guards, the villagers had taken to being nicer to _him_ specifically, which was not the point. For Johael, that has never been the point. 

So many things that Johael loved were tangled in an ugly and baseless hatred, and yet… A good deed could change minds, right? 

In the early days of his first journey, Johael had laughed to himself fairly often, seemingly at nothing. To Jurian and Yubel, it would have immediately been recognized as a nervous sound. But with some luck, no bandits attacked the caravan, and when Johael came back alongside a few pieces of coin, he noticed how those tiny, tiny flat discs did more to stop the villagers from hurling insults at the younger orphans than, oh, roughly eight years of arguing with them. The kids from well-off families even stopped making a game out of harassing the three-legged goat he had rescued two years ago.

A low, hissing laugh had echoed inside Johael's head when he had trudged back to the merchant, ready to beg for another assignment. He could almost hear Yubel haughtily drawl out, _'Don't be naive, Johael. You understand how humans are.'_

Although, in the end, the coins were not what changed the ugly contours of Osternia.

Try as he would to stay focused, it was impossible for Johael to ignore a cry for help, no matter how distant. Yes, he completed guard missions -- assuring frazzled merchants that the howling wolves were not a threat and calming horses spooked by whiffs of new scents -- but more and more he found himself running back into the wilds once the caravan had reached its destination. 

His heart would clench at rumors of hunted beasts, of souls in need of a friend, and he would be off with only light supplies across his back and that well-worn sword at his side. Like this, he sparked his own rumors, those of a young genius at the blade who fought for the weak, and he did fight. He tore through villains with mystical beasts crying in their snares. He hunted those who even knights would be hesitant to name.

He fought beautifully, and that reputation, more than anything else, finally convinced the villagers of Osternia that he was right. His kindness -- faultless as untouched snow bending with the land below and casting a magical stillness, an _awe_ , over those who observed it -- had proven itself despite the harrowing moments of violence and pain. From there, the changes were both quick and cascading, culminating into a calm so strong that Johael felt as though he could breathe it in. Returning from another week-long trek into the mountains, he found himself standing in the town square and stunned by the radiant peace. The well at his right was ringed by a lively collection of people and animals, and the birds perched above sang louder than they ever had before. They had crafted beautiful new songs, and Johael listened to them as he watched small children dressed in muddy repurposed rags chase after those in embroidered linens -- which were just as muddy, a consequence of their new game. Eventually, he continued on, falling into a dream-like awe with each new step. Yes, so _much_ of the cruelty here had been vanquished, and the joy of it, the _relief_ of it, made him want to put his head in his hands and cry. 

Instead, he walked to the orphanage: aplain, white building with a crumbling side. Its colours came from the flurry of activity inside of it, shrill laughs and yells spilling out through the open shutters and doors. When a muzzle featuring a particularly wet nose nudged at his palm, Johael dropped to his knees and ruffled the uneven coat of an old stray dog. “Hey there! Give me a bit, and I’ll go find you something,” he said with a sharp nod, but the dog rumbled back that, no, he had already been fed well. Although it remained choppy and dry, the dog’s coat had been washed thoroughly, and someone had ever tied a ribbon onto his simple collar. 

Although the cloth over Johael’s eyes hid the tears that suddenly beaded and then overflowed, the dog still understood the slow, wracking shiver that passed over his dear protector, and he nudged at Johael’s hand again. It was okay to cry. Dogs weren’t as judgemental as other animals, after all.

“Ah, you’re going to start arguments with the others if you say things like that,” Johael said, his voice shaky but bright, and when he ruffled the dog’s shaggy ears, he noticed the problem. “So, you managed to get into a patch of burrs...”

They’re itchy, was the dog’s verdict, and when the warden found Johael, he was sitting on a rock near the back of the building and dutifully loosening the individual burrs from the little knots of white and brown fur. Patiently, the dog waited, occasionally thumping his tail against the ground. Preoccupied as he was, Johael didn’t notice her arrival, but he did notice when the eldery woman sighed to his left and then bumped his hands away, taking over the task herself. Her wide, sturdy hands were streaked with ruddy patches of pink-red from the sun. 

“So this is where you’ve been hiding out.”

“I haven’t been hiding,” Johael replied, and he tried to resume his work, only to be blocked again. He pouted. “I mean it. I was in the square earlier.”

“Hm. None of that explains why you’re not inside and being fawned over by, oh, roughly thirty extremely excited kids. They’ve made you a cake.”

“O-Oh…”

“Don’t act so surprised,” she muttered, and with a final twist, the last burr joined the pile. ‘Thunk thunk thunk’ went the dog’s tail against the ground, hard enough that it kicked up some dust. “So, when are you leaving?”

“Uh. I’ll need to ask for a new assignment, which-”

The warden shook her head, and Johael felt his next breath catch. His legs felt weak.

“No. I’m asking when you’re leaving on your _own_ adventure.”

“My own…?”

“You’re sixteen. There’s no law stopping you from going out into the world,” she stated, and Johael just blinked at her. The dog barked, a show of support. “I’ll keep your room here as is, and I’ll have one of the kids reroute your mail.”

“Oh, you don’t have to-”

She cut him off, brushing her hands over her floor-length skirt as she stood up. “You were a real pain-in-the-neck kid to bring up. Hiding injured birds under your bed. Sneaking milk to the village cats. Always causing trouble with the rich folks. Throwing you out would’ve been a whole a lot easier, but, then again, your way of doing things was the right one in the end. People who travel through here don’t talk about Osternia as a plain village along an old smuggling route anymore. All they want to talk about is you.”

“W-Well, that’s...kinda embarrassing, actually.” Laughing, he turned away from her, and he steadied himself by ruffling the dog’s ears. Sounds from inside the building leaked out -- giggles and shouts, followed by the creaks and rumbles of furniture being clumsily moved.

“But I’m not telling you to leave because you’re now a famous pain-in-the-neck swordsman,” she explained, and her stillness was incredibly strange. Usually she was all movement, wrangling loud children and gathering supplies for those simple but warm meals. “I’m telling you to leave because you want to. You’re just too damn stubborn to tell anyone about it.”

“I-It’s not that. Someone has to look after the animals, and the little kids might-”

“You’ve seen the change here. Try trusting the rest of us to stay on the path.” Before he could fumble through a response, she started towards the building, her pace quick and her strides long. Without glancing back, she gave his new orders. “Take that money you’ve earned and do what you want.”

When Johael went to pat the dog’s head again, he instead touched something smooth and stiff. A new letter from Jurian had been slightly wedged into the dog’s collar, and even before he opened it, the decision appeared stark in his mind, engraved upon his very self. The world sprawled and sprawled around him, the gentle breeze that wafted over him now capable of thickening with new scents, of carrying with it scraps of new leaves and flowers. 

The first half of the letter detailed new fighting styles that the prince had seen, featuring rigid but detailed diagrams that could only be from Yubel, and, with a gentle smile, Johael ran his fingers over the black lines, his imagination tethered to them. The slanted, rushed characters then told him of their travels further north before flowing into urgent questions. How was he? What was he up to? And did he ‘happen to know anything about a swordsman with a white mask’? He could _feel_ Jurian winking at him. Yubel would have rolled their eyes as further commentary. 

In the last fold of the letter was a dried-out flower with a vibrant blue stem and yellow petals, and by the next morning, Johael was gone.

\---

In the months that followed, he continued to write to the prince, sometimes jabbing at his remaining ink with a sharpened stick and holding the far-more-expensive-than-it-should-be parchment against a convenient rock or barrel. He wrote with new mountains at his back or with a vibrant sea around him as the transport boat creaked and swayed. Increasingly so, he wrote with a blue kitten-like critter purring on his shoulder. She was a rescue from a cold-hearted merchant. She had been ripped from her mother's den, and as they passed through strange cities ringed by even stranger lands teeming with adventure and magic, she became a true friend. Every flick of her long ears made him smile, as did the lively swings of her tail -- each one making the gem at its end sparkle and gleam. 

Her name was Ruby, naturally. 

Together they navigated more and more of this unfolding world. Landscapes he had thought impossible became real. Flightless birds with striped plumes raced each other over beds of yellow-purple moss, Ruby's paws twitching with the urge to join in the chasing game. Rains fell over crags of grey stone until the walls shone like great sculptures of ice. Golden sand stretched until the horizon, the encroaching heat moving over it as a faint shimmer of light. Ruby complained equally about the snow, little flakes of white drifting over them and between the great boughs of ancient trees. 

Often, it really was just them, their comfortable silences shared with the growing plants below and the branches interwoven above. Although he felt pangs of homesickness, especially when foraging became difficult and memories of warm stew were hard to push away, Johael was not lonely during this stretch of time. Not when Ruby was near and chittering to him about the breeze and the temperature and the contents of the latest letter, fluttering between topics with her small forehead brushing his jawline. 

When Johael -- his nails embedded with dirt and grit and his chest heaving from days and _days_ of climbing -- finally found her home nestled in the cracks of a steep mountain that rose like a grey pillar from the green forest below, he almost didn't believe it at first, not until he caught many, _many_ other red eyes watching him from within the cave. 

Ruby was young. She needed her family still, and as he lowered her to the ground, her little paws batting his shaking hands, he tried not to cry. It happened regardless, Ruby nudging at his wet cheeks and cooing in his ear. They would meet again, in this life or the next. 

On his way down from the mountain, he destroyed the markers used by human hunters to find that secret cave. He set new ones that would only lead them in circles, and he destroyed hidden supply stashes that had been paid for with evil gold. To the light within him, the boy's restraint and focus was extraordinary, a sign of his wonderful character and of his unmatched quality as their true vessel. 

Few felt and feared true destruction as he did, and none had a heart as pure as his own. 

Weeds grew over the paths once frequented by hunters. And, eventually, trees would make the journey from saplings to giants in the same places as their boots once tread. Eventually.

\---

Now, the boy sat on the grassy outskirts of a quiet town and stared at the parchment spread over his knees. It was his last piece. It could not contain the flurry of thoughts running through his mind, tired as it was. He and the prince were both seventeen now. The distance had made some things clearer than before.

Yes, he should go back, because the ache of that unfulfilled promise had only grown stronger and stronger. The prince and his guardian would understand, and just the thought of seeing them again eased his pained heart, the absence of Ruby's warmth a burden he would carry for a long time.

In this era, magic was woven amongst the tangled leaves and petals of the ancient forests, and it heeded the calls of earnest joy and earnest pain alike.

The love between Johael and Ruby had already slipped out of time.

\---

When that final letter reached the prince, it was crumpled from the journey, and the dried flower that Johael had carefully pressed inside had lost one faded petal. The royal procession was returning from a diplomatic mission to Illastrom fortress, and the camp was a place of slow movements and yawned-out statements in the early hours. Of course, the prince had different motivations than the assorted guards and nobles around him. He darted inside his father's empty tent -- a sprawling construction with four center masts and rich carpets spread over the ground below -- to open the letter. From the first black swirl of ink, the prince was enthralled, and the simple declaration at the very bottom made him shout.

"He's coming back!"

"Ah, so the wanderer has finally decided to grace us with his presence," was the teasing reply from Yubel, lowering a strip of canvas and striding closer. The prince looked up, and his grin was at its absolute widest. 

"He said he's going to take the next boat, so that means we'll need a few weeks, maybe a month, but… Let's schedule a tournament! Or a parade! Or-"

"Both?"

"Yeah! Both!" he agreed, absorbed again in the letter. "Ah… Maybe we should meet him halfway. Flying back the rest of the way would make his trip a lot faster…"

With a long-suffering sigh, Yubel crossed their arms. "My dear, it is possible to simply _wait_."

He pouted. "...You sure about that?" 

"I give you my word."

"Hmmm… But _, Yubel_ …"

"Aren't you a little old for this act?" they whispered, throwing on a knowing smirk that showed their long canines, and the prince was far from being intimidated. If anything, he only pouted more.

"Well, sometimes it works."

"Not this time."

"You sure? I know you're not immune to my good looks," the prince added, his grin turning mischievous in a way so familiar that it made Yubel laugh.

"Please. You'll have to negotiate better than that."

Rolling his eyes, the prince folded the parchment and tucked it inside his vest. At the insistence of several royal advisors, the prince wore the complete costume of a noble swordsman for every day of their trip -- a tasseled half-cape in blood red, a vest bearing his heraldic symbols in threads of gold, a high-collared tunic that flashed with gems, white riding pants, and tall boots that had been polished under they shone. Such measures had, of course, been the right decision, as the young, brilliant prince had left a lasting impression on the king's allies. His strength flowed from him. His potential had not yet been reached. 

Although in some matters, he really was just an uncertain boy. That showed through when, absently, he ran a fingertip over the exposed edge of the letter, and Yubel's gaze softened in a way that few ever saw. The otherworldly fires dimmed, and stepping closer, they leaned against him, their forehead over his own.

When Yubel dropped their chin and pressed a warm kiss to the prince's cheek, he began to laugh, strands of Yubel's untamed hair drawing erratic shapes over his sun-kissed skin. He returned it, a chaste peck fluttering over Yubel's jawline -- just above where the thicker scales began and formed a collar of glittering black over their long neck. 

"Well, I guess we should go find my dad before he starts accusing random people of kidnapping me," the prince muttered, a bit petulant but still bright. Yubel hummed in agreement, and yet they nonetheless let their wings drift over him, forming a cocoon in streaks of magenta and black. 

"Hmm, true. But first… One more," they murmured before giving the prince a stronger kiss over his cheek, strong enough that his next breath stopped in his throat. He blinked quickly, and Yubel, lifting the wall of their wings, moved away with that knowing smirk turning their lips again.

"Uh… W-What was that for?" the prince asked, more red than usual. A lot more red, actually. 

"It's simply a gift. You can pass it along, if you'd like," Yubel drawled, and then they glanced back. "Perhaps you'd like to give it to a certain wanderer."

"H-Hey! Wait! It's not like that!" 

"Hmmm…. Really?"

"Really really," the prince shot back, running and cutting Yubel off before they could glide out of the tent. Their amusement was stark, their smirk high. "Y-Yubel, I swore you'd have all of my love. Why would I ever go back on that?!"

"Oh, I'm not doubting you, my darling. I'm simply giving you one gesture of love back, if you'd like to greet our swordsman with a-"

"Y-Yubel!"

"Well, then you can save it for later," they replied, swiftly stepping around the prince and pushing the canvas aside. Although, naturally, the conversation did not end there, the prince absolute in his conviction and willing to tackle his rather-spikey guardian over it. 

"If you're so shy, maybe I'll pass the gift along for you," was the taunt Yubel made as the prince sputtered helplessly, several confused knights and workers looking over at the famous pair in between their tasks. Moving a camp such as this was, after all, a rather complicated procedure.

"Yubel, what's going on?" the prince whined, his childish expression at odds with his elaborate costume. Yubel rolled their eyes. 

"Ah, I see my meaning isn't clear to you. I apologize."

"You don't _sound_ very sincere…"

"My dear, I never meant to imply that you've broken your promise to me," they said plainly, and the prince focused. "As I watched you read the letter, I finally understood that the love you have for me is of an entirely different kind from the love you have for Johael. One is a rose, the other is a sunflower, to use an example."

"I… Okay. I...might get it," the prince stated, nodding. His hair was, as always, a maze of golds, reds, and coppers, and it shifted as he straightened again. "Sorry. I never meant to make you jealous or anything. ...Guess I don't pay enough attention."

"Oh, no. I was never jealous. As a half-dragon, I would be… Ah, let's just say that I could never conceal a reaction like that," Yubel explained, gesturing absently with one claw. 

"I'm confused again."

"Please don't be. It's really not that complicated."

"...You sure about that?" the prince asked, arching an eyebrow, and the easy dynamic between them returned when the king called for the horses to be brought out, the bay mare trotting over to the prince and lowering her head. He brushed her mane back.

"Hey, Yubel?"

"Hmm?"

"I think...for now, I want to give him a different present, not that your idea isn't good and all." The mare nudged his palm, snorting. "From his letters, he must be fighting even more than I do, and I have three tutors for that, plus a certain tall friend of mine."

"As your 'tall friend,' I can confirm those circumstances," Yubel smoothly replied, and they had already reached his conclusion. They understood. "At your request, a fine blade could be forged for him."

"Yeah… Although…"

They understood faster than the prince did, the glints of orange-green in their eyes catching the light. "Although, the greatest blades were all forged in a dragon's fire… Perhaps we can make this into a collaboration. Your knowledge of his dueling style, and the use of my flames. Is this a-?"

Realistically speaking, the strength of the human prince could never have overwhelmed that of his fused guardian, and yet the sudden hug made their words stop, catching on their tongue and remaining only suggestions, only figments. In truth, such words were unnecessary, because the prince was beaming from ear to ear when he let go and spun in place.

His happiness changed the colours of Yubel's world, and Yubel's own grin -- small but moving in its own jagged way -- deepened and changed the prince's understanding of love. To him, Yubel was a rose under a night's luminous sky, all the stars out as an ocean of teal and white, and he would have gladly stared and stared at them forever while the stars danced above. But, as it was, there was a camp to move, and Yubel's gentle chiding in their lower tones made him duck his head and laugh along. And, to the prince, it really was paradise -- the anticipation of a new meeting, the murmurs of Yubel's lavender scent. The warmth of their love. 

\---

To coordinate the metalworkers on such short notice was, in and of itself, a notable struggle. The prince himself had to hammer the metal, and he did complain the entire time. He gave advance warning of that, and the usual workers had bet against him. He would wear himself out after the first session or two, right?

Yubel, wisely, had held their tongue and let reality fall as it ought to. In other words, by the time the longsword had reached its final stage, the prince's whining had become something of a legend around the castle. Perhaps he could scare off invaders with the powers of his grumpy sighs alone. 

Although, when the blade was complete -- a pale cut of a weapon that was miraculously light -- his energy came back in full, and he shook Yubel by their shoulders as he babbled endlessly about the gift. To the workers, he was endearing, his bare arms covered with the dirt and filth of the forge. Soot was smeared across his handsome face, more of it in his hair. 

Cutting into his own tossed-aside coat, the prince wrapped the blade in sapphire blue. It was meant to be a temporary cover, until the scabbard could be made next. 

Although it was exceedingly unlikely for Johael to be punctual in any timeline, an even rarer event occurred next. Namely, he was early, and when he passed through the castle gates, the murmurs immediately reached Yubel's sensitive ears. 

"Ah. A new development."

Whirling around, the prince

clutched the wrapped sword tightly, and he could see through Yubel's composed expression. He rocked back. "S-Seriously!? He's… He's here!"

The prince took off at full speed, bursting into a side street and careening down the narrow passageways of the castle, each teeming with market stands, grumbling livestock, and many, many startled citizens whom the prince dodged expertly, so well that Yubel -- following as a shadow -- found themselves impressed. Yes, the prince was a natural, and he showed those reflexes by dipping under an oxen cart, dancing around a stack of imported vegetables, and then, with catlike agility, jumping over a collection of wine barrels, all while holding the sword aloft. His laughter carried, and when he saw Johael, the embrace was inevitable. As if it were the gradual slip of one season into the next. 

The prince, ducking his head, started a tackle-hug-spin that had Johael gasping for air and trying to steady the bird on his right arm -- a towering eagle with a proud, russet chest and a white head. One of his wings was bound in a makeshift split, the wood audibly creaking as the bird fidgeted. His talons dug into the leather gauntlet covering most of Johael's wrist. 

The prince, taking this in with a hurried glance, launched into a thousand questions at once. A mechanized ballista could not have launched its projectiles so quickly. 

"W-Woah, woah! Easy there!"

"Can you blame me for getting excited?" the prince mumbled back, and then he laughed, bouncing on his heels. "Ah, come on, Johael. You gotta introduce me to your new friend!"

"Oh! This is Cobalt!" Johael replied, extending his right arm and hefting the bird higher. The eagle regarded the gathered citizens coldly, as a haughty ruler would, and the prince stared up at him in a momentary wonder. Yeah, Johael _did_ have the wildest friends! "We met up on the road. ...Well, that's the short version of it, and I rushed the rest of the way here since I'm...not the best with injuries. I was sorta hoping that-"

"Come on! The druids will fix Cobalt up!"

"Ah- S-Sorry!" Johael called out to the merchant that the prince almost ran into, and in truth, Johael was so caught up in wonderment and joy and piercing, piercing _relief_ at having reached the castle that he didn't notice the wrapped sword, not until after the murmuring druids had reset Cobalt's injured wing and given the bird a place to rest in their aviary. 

No, he didn't notice it until Yubel had joined them on the ramparts, the water a curve of sapphire blue and the salt-laced wind running over them all. Blinking behind a thin lattice of white cloth, he leaned closer to the prince.

“Oh, you got a new dueling sword!”

“Not...quite,” the prince admitted, sheepish for a moment. From being carried around like a piece of firewood, the sword had carelessly torn its covering to ribbons, its smooth grey peering out. With a flourish, the prince took the grip and revealed the longsword -- the design of the hilt simple, the double fuller extending down the length of the refined blade. In the daylight, it would catch the sun so perfectly that onlookers would swear it was a blaze of pure white. Yubel, quietly observing the prince’s nervous grin, decided to encourage him, their tone smooth with affection.

“My dear, you may need to explain a little more than that.”

“It’s… It’s for you!” he blurted out, and Johael could only blink back at him. The prince continued. “I-It’s so light because of the design, plus Yubel’s dragon fire has some, ahh, complicated magic behind it that also makes the metal way stronger than it should be, so… Uh.”

“This...is for _me_?”

“Of course!”

“I...actually sold my sword on the way here,” Johael whispered, barely loud enough to be heard over the constant surges of the ocean against the shore and the lingering voices from within the castle. Ducking his head, he gave a smile neither the prince nor his guardian had seen before -- wide but shaky, almost sad. “At first, Cobalt’s condition wasn’t...good, and I needed to catch a ride with a convoy. The one I have here is just a hunk of wood attached to a grip I traded for later,” he said, tapping the scabbard at his side, and the prince could only stare at him, waiting. The prince stiffened when he reached up and lowered the cloth over his closed eyes, beaded tears gleaming against dark eyelashes. “Huh. Guess my sentimental side has decided to make an appearance….”

“Johael?”

“I couldn’t have asked for anything better. Really, thank you both so much,” Johael said, blinking quickly and then meeting the prince’s gaze with his own. His eyes were the green of the delicate underside of a leaf brightened by the sunlight streaming through it. Or, maybe they were more like the green of a flower’s narrow stem -- a snowdrop, or a bluebell -- as it curled towards the first clear day of spring. When he turned to face Yubel, he tilted his head to the side, and for the prince, this moment became a dear memory. Its colours would never fade, not as those the dried cuts of ferns, vines, and flowers that Johael sent him as part of their extended game did. This was a moment captured in its entirety.

When Johael finally -- laughing back the tears that made him blush in embarrassment, a streak of red below the vibrant green -- took the longsword, he stepped back in surprise at the weight. When his fingers tightened around the simply wrapped grip, his smile curved higher.

“You know, I think it’s going to be easier from here, now that you’re both with me… In a sense.”

“Oh? I thought you carried our memories with you before this,” Yubel replied, making Johael chuckle to himself. 

“Ah, yeah. I did, but this feels… Uh. ...Sorry, I can’t find the words for it!”

“...I now predict that this conversation will end with the two of you sparring in the courtyard and greatly upsetting the royal guards.”

A bit guilty, Johael turned away. “W-Well…”

The prince, in contrast, bounced up and down. Such excitement could only have one conclusion.

Under a blanket of stars, controlled hits of metal on metal rang out, as did the laughs from the boys as they drew out their playful competitions, as their idle taunts were thrown out and then joked about with quick, knowing looks. To the royal guards who patrolled the castle at night, their utter _joy_ made them seem ephemeral, removed so greatly from the worries of war and conflict and despair that deepened the wrinkled brow of the king. They danced around each other, untethered and swift in their reactions, in the interplay of strikes and parries all made for the joy of it. Yubel’s chuckles drifted over the courtyard, their thorned silhouette against the pale full moon.

 _“They’re...so similar,”_ muttered more than one passerby as the night glided on, and it was true. Still in his dirt-marked clothes from the forge, the prince’s status only showed through the gems and runes embedded in the maze of his intricate longsword. With his quiet confidence and evident skill, Johael could have been a royal from a distant land, an opposing prince to be the silver to Jurian’s gold. But that was not meant to be.

They were instead a collision of light and darkness, only the light had not revealed itself. For this night, it remained a curious glint deep within Johael’s innocent eyes, a fleck of something else that pushed through his pupils. Parries followed parries closely, the clashes falling as hard as hammer strikes, and their next spar ended with Johael flat on the ground, his hands held out in surrender while the prince, always one to feel victory strongly, tossed a fist into the air.

“Ha! Okay, I was _really_ lucky that time…”

“What? You’re not going to praise your own skills?” Johael teased back, propping himself up on his elbows, and the prince spun his own blade once, an eyebrow arched.

“Hey, Johael, you could’ve beaten me. My guard dropped for a second there, and you _definitely_ noticed.”

“Sure, but then I wouldn’t have had the time for that spinning move, which…” Giggling, he trailed off, and the prince rolled his eyes, entertained by all of Johael’s quirks. “Okay, maybe I had a bit too much fun there…”

“Yeah, but then again… That move looked so _amazing_! Next time, I’ll show you my own version of it, okay?"

“Sure, although… Next time I’m not planning on hitting the ground,” Johael stated, and with that, the spark had formed, the next match was seconds away, and the radiance of the stars above remained unseen by those locked in this form of combat. To Johael, the resonance that he and the prince had shared from the very beginning sung out even louder.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Light: I'm taking some liberties with the Light of Destruction, given how it is presented in season 2 and beyond. I might write a longer note about this. Above all else, I'm...focusing on it as a force of eventual opposition/conflict between its host and that of the Gentle Darkness. I'm also assuming that simple sparring isn't enough to drive it out.
> 
> Protector: While 'Johan' isn't blond here, I am taking major cues from the design for 'Crystal Protector' when it comes to his past self, hence the white blindfold and sword. While the Crystal Beasts also have a history tied to the ancient tablet in canon, I did want to include them here as well. ...Duel spirits can have complicated origins, I suppose!
> 
> Thanks for reading.


	3. Chapter 3

\---

Under the druids’ experienced care, Cobalt’s wing began to properly heal, and Johael visited him for hours each day. Sometimes, either spared from his royal duties or actively avoiding them, the prince would join him in the aviary, and while he lacked Johael's gift, the most skittish of the birds would still find themselves drawn to him. Maybe it was because of his determination, the simple act of putting seeds in his palm becoming a mission that he just  _ had  _ to accomplish. Even the druids found themselves at a loss to explain how arrogant hawks and shy owls alike found new perches on the prince's outstretched arm. 

Yes, the boys mirrored each other, but the surface carried with it an unseen crack. The brutal mirror would so soon break open. 

"He has a home to return to," Johael said of Cobalt one day, and the prince was immediately on his feet again, the berries he had picked falling from his cupped palms. "And… Yeah, he could fly there, but the passage is popular with hunters, and with his feathers being as rare as they are…"

"I'll come with you."

"Jurian, I…" Shaking his head, Johael leaned back. Like great wisps of smoke, rain clouds drifted by, and the forest called for a downpour, eager to let the life within it grow higher and higher. Because it was overcast, Johael used his uncovered eyes to take in the quiet majesty surrounding them, the place of the prince's lively childhood. Every deer trail, every crook in an old tree, knew him dearly. 

"You're growing up faster than me because you go on these adventures," the prince added, grumbling as if it were a joke, and yet it wasn't. What could be better than growing alongside each other,  _ together _ ? He regarded the fallen berries. Damp black-red marred his palm. To him now, the remaining juice would have been tasteless. "I don't want my title anymore. It doesn't suit me at all."

"I don't know about that…"

Snorting, the prince approached his dear friend. They were on a pathway hushed by the willows bordering it. Dragonflies darted by. A cautious deer crept towards the berry bushes. 

"What's the point in a title you didn't even  _ earn  _ or ask for? It's a pain, if you ask me…"

"Ah, but you're not just  _ any  _ prince, Jurian. You're the crown prince of Alanorn. Unbeatable in a duel… Faster than lightning… A champion of justice…" He paused, humming. His eyes sparkled. "Those are all things describing  _ you _ and only you, so, hey, you might not have earned the title, but you've made it your own!"

"Okay, okay. I get your point," the prince mumbled, daring to glance up again. "Still… It's not fair. You won't blame me if I try to sneak out after you, right?"

Laughing, Johael dodged the prince's friendly 'whap' at his arm, although he slowed down for the next one, and somehow they became tangled in each other -- the prince's arm over his shoulders, their heads ducked closely together. Their noses almost brushed, and, up close, the luminescent green was at its most fascinating, as was the copper-red of the prince's enraptured stare. 

"Tell you what. I'll make another promise."

"You've already seen my face and Yubel's, so what else is there?" the prince muttered, and his friend knocked their foreheads together, the lights in his eyes shifting. 

"I haven't won a duel against you, not really."

"Johael?"

"But… I want to win before you eclipse me even further. I promise that I won't fall behind, and I promise that our duel when I get back will be the best one yet!"

"...We're going to duel again before you leave. I won't accept anything else," was the mumbled reply. "Your promise doesn't make much sense… Like, maybe you'll win when we spar later…"

"Maaaybe, but I'll still want to duel you when I get back!"

"Just hurry back, okay?"

"Yeah, of course! Like I said, I can't have you outpacing me, Jurian."

"You're the one outpacing  _ me _ ."

"No way!"

The zig-zagging of the dragonflies and the gentle steps of the pale, spotted deer were accompanied by a flurry of yelps and laughs from the boys, who were later found soaking wet by a somewhat-amused Yubel. It was unclear who had dragged the other into the river first, although it was  _ very  _ clear that only the prince was bold enough to try and drag Yubel in next. 

It was a futile effort, of course, and Johael laughed until his ribs hurt when Yubel unceremoniously picked up the prince by the collar of his tunic and flung him back in, the resounding 'splash' loud enough to startle some resting doves. They coo-ed in annoyance. 

"N-No fair!"

"Of course it was fair," Yubel replied, their full lips in a victor's pleased smirk. "I let you have the first attack, and then I countered."

"W-What?!" the prince sputtered, his unruly bangs dripping over his face, and Johael tried to cover his mouth, giggles escaping regardless. The prince spun around. "Oi, whose side are you on?!"

"W-Well, I  _ would  _ like to dry off, so…"

Stars were poking through the navy-black sky by the time Yubel -- much like a sheep herder with a very small yet noisy flock -- shoved the two chattering, quarreling boys through the castle's main gates, and they tracked mud inside, gleaming drops of clear water flying from the prince's shaggy hair as he continued to bounce around with those wide, compelling gestures. He orbited Johael as they strode closer and closer to the keep, his scarlet cloak heavy with water and flowing behind him like a torn rose petal.

Johael had always intended to return to Alanorn, to meet the prince's playful strikes with his own while Yubel's steady gaze flickered over them both, the fires within it comforting like those of a well-fed hearth. 

In the prince's grand chambers, the candles were out, letting the moonlight spill uncontested through the opened shutters. While the prince had a grand, curtained bed in another room, itself like a decorative tent with thousands of delicate stitches forming a canopy of stars on the inside, he had transformed an antechamber for the sake of his friend -- piling tapestries, carpets, blankets, and pillows until the octagonal room resembled the hoard of a comfort-seeking dragon. Jurian had, more than once, tried to blame the chaos of the room on Yubel -- who had been flying far above the castle when the prince had first set on systematically dismantling his own chambers.

Those statements inevitably ended with Yubel whipping a pillow at him and Johael losing the ability to form a sentence, the laughter unstoppable. In this room, the ceiling had been painted with panels relaying an ancient story of heroism -- a phoenix with a great, trailing tail in many colours flying through each panel and growing progressively brighter and fuller in its magnificence. As a creation of the supernatural themselves, Yubel was fascinating in a similar way, the swirling silver-blue of the moonlight bringing out the flecks of purple and grey deep within their many scales. When the prince finally slept, they were the curved half-moon in charcoal black and amethyst purple next to him, their half-lidded eyes belying their active, whirling mind.

"You're going to wear yourself down," they rasped once the moon had risen in full, and the prince's chest rolled with his deep breaths. But Johael was not asleep, not yet, and he looked over at Yubel, his eyes at their best in the dark: a phenomenon that baffled the castle's sorcerers and, sometimes, made a prickle of an unknown  _ feeling  _ drift over Yubel's brow. Like a warning so buried that it could not be understood. A call from beneath layers and layers of solid rock.

"By taking Cobalt back?" he replied, curious. 

"Not specifically. Rather, it's your desire to protect others. I'm not scolding you for it," they explained with the same low, rolling tone, one claw absently stroking the prince's bangs and easing his sleep, "but perhaps you'll need to restrain yourself in the future, to avoid ruin that is."

"...Yeah, you don't miss anything, do you?" he replied quietly, and the prince's blanket rustled, his knees pulling up against his chest. The sight made him smile. "Ever since Ruby went home, I've...felt hardships stronger than I used to."

"That's because you're a protector, like I am."

His smile tightened. It was the truth, and Yubel had said with such unflinching honesty. "Ah, I understand. I'm making you worry about me, aren't I?"

The myriad of colours and patterns below shifted when Yubel, in a move so rarely observed by the painted figures above, folded their wings in and moved away from the prince, letting distance spill in between them. Kneeling next to Johael, they took one of his hands in their own. 

To many an outsider, Yubel looked as if their touch would be cold, but it never was, not when a dragon's blood twisted through their veins. Johael sat up. The moonlight loved the softer angles of Yubel’s face just as it loved the strong lines of their throat. 

"Perhaps. I feel as though I understand your conflict. To live in human society with your gift is certainly difficult. Even in a prosperous kingdom such as ours, the citizens can nevertheless fall into vice and barbarism." They did not blink, and Johael remained suspended in the moment.

He needed to speak, but the words faded. They melted into one another, and he stared down at the interlocking scales over Yubel's warm claws.

"I… I've always wanted to make this world simpler. Cruel things should be tossed aside. Heroes should fight villains." Inhaling, he continued, Yubel watching him with their unblinking, revealing eyes. "Still, I think that same world has been trying to teach me a lesson about balance. Or… Patience, if nothing else."

"To make the world simple is to make it very, very small. Your heart is too much like Jurian’s for such a limited worldview. You're adventurous. You adore the plurality of life and the complicated relationships within it. Therefore…"

"Therefore I need to try and wrap my head around the world instead of getting frustrated with it, right?"

"Ah, don't make it sound so... _ final _ ," Yubel drawled, running a thumb over Johael's own, their gaze dropping to follow the motion. "There are inevitable trials that anyone must face as they grow and change. Yours are simply leading you towards deeper worries then those you had before. The prince is facing a similar problem, you see. Perhaps that is why I recognized it so quickly in you."

"Jurian has a lot to deal with, that's for sure. ...I'm so glad you're there for him, Yubel. Honestly, I...can't even imagine a different reality."

"You don't have to," they smoothly replied, and they released his hand, although Johael, a bit too stunned, was slow to take it back. The warmth left behind was similar to that of a stone left by a roaring campfire. 

"You're only a few years older than us… I guess that gave you a head start on figuring all of this out?"

Their laughter sounded almost like the purr of a great cat. "Oh, no. No, no. I'm simply far,  _ far  _ more selfish than either one of you," they stated, and Johael's eyebrows shot up. "You see, my world only encircles the prince, myself, and his dear protector, which makes it very simple. Although, it was even  _ simpler  _ before we found you…"

"Ah… I feel like I should apologize," was his reply, made jokingly enough that Yubel's smile curved higher. 

"Oh, please. We're past such trivial concerns." Dipping their head, they gave him another look full of fascination, their absolute focus making the green and orange seem to surge and grow. "For now, ensure that one of those kind souls you seek to protect is  _ yourself _ , my dear. Otherwise… Well, we may have an argument when you return, and my temper is far worse than Jurian’s."

Burrowing back under his blanket, Johael chuckled to himself. As a wave of blue, his hair contrasted with the rich red and gold threads below -- roses and dragons embroidered with equal care and skill. "Oh, I'll believe that, especially since I  _ did  _ see you chuck the crown prince of Alanorn into a river today."

"Hmm. That is true…"

A groan interrupted them, the prince's tired frown coupled with an equally tired stare. "What're you guys doing? Yubel, I'm cold…"

"You never use enough blankets," they chided, but that, clearly, wasn't the answer he wanted. The frown deepened. 

"Why do I need more blankets when I have you? Also, Johael, why do you always roll away? Come here!"

Startled, the boy blushed, not that Jurian noticed. Yubel, as always, did, and they snorted at just how obvious the pieces of this puzzle were. The prince clumsily reaching out to pull Yubel closer was a familiar gesture, the guardian carefully angling his touch away from their sharper plates of armor, and the prince's head quickly found its usual place in the crook of one arm. The rest of Yubel curled naturally around him, radiating heat. 

For him to pull Johael over next was very new, and the other boy blinked from where he was now, his right side flopped over the prince and their limbs colliding before fitting into place. When he looked up, the ceiling's many painted figures were veiled by Yubel's extended wing. Their lavender scent permeated everything, and his surprise settled. He became calm.

This night flowed onwards, reaching for sunrise, and Johael did sleep in their dual embrace. Yubel's swift claws flitted through his hair, the warmth from their body slowly sinking into him and unraveling his lingering thoughts. Jurian’s face pressed closed to his own, warm breath washing over Johael’s jawline, and those unkempt bangs did tickle his skin but not enough to stop his eyes from closing or sleep from taking him. If he had dreams, he did not remember them. 

The wheel of fate spun on, and with the passage of this night, it became more and more like the cruel, spiked wheel of a mad chariot. Carelessly it could grind bones to dust. It would slash and maim with abominable ease. This age of prosperity would end. 

\---

Johael left on a summer's morning, the proud eagle taking the updrafts and soaring far over him. In a simple traveller's outfit and with a latticed white cloth obscuring his eyes, he should not have shone with the majesty of a knight in heraldic colours, but he did to the prince. His broad smile was unmatched. It made the intricate works of the castle's artisans seem meaningless and even the prince's grandest dreams of heroism seem hollow and strange, and when Johael turned to face the road that wound towards the horizon, the prince felt his heart clench. Yes, Yubel had been right. It could only be love of a different shade. 

As it was, the Gentle Darkness nourished hope as fertile soil coaxed even the smallest plants to rise. Johael would return, the prince believed. He had promised to, and as a hope, this one had already grown tall and blossomed. Yubel's touch on his shoulder was a reassurance, and stepping back from the main gate, the prince shook his head and grinned at the forest that lay beyond. 

"Well, if he's serious about training while he's on the road, then I can't slack off either! ...Okay, maybe a  _ little _ , but not enough that I'll disappoint Johael!"

"I'll hold you to that," Yubel said, and, rolling his eyes, the prince took off at a run for the courtyard. 

Although, not all of his days belonged to him alone, as a prince had to learn the strategies of war, the needs of a sprawling kingdom, and the histories of these varied lands. Withered alchemists implored him to learn of the elements and how they related to the distant cosmos, and those moments with his longsword were streaks of vibrant colours against the grey of the many, many worries encroaching on him. Of course, they rarely reached in and twisted his dreams, as Yubel would always be there, stroking his bangs back and muttering soothing words in his ear.

But in the middle of that arid summer, the prince was struck by a sadness that not even Yubel's devotion could heal.

A line was drawn across the life of the prince, dividing that one moment and those that followed it from everything in the past. The statues of heroes that ran the length of the throne room were forced, just as the trembling prince was, to watch while an assassin's runed blade plunged deep into the neck of the king. Streaming out, his blood ran black, and the prince did not hear the methodical 'snaps' of Yubel breaking bones, nor did he register that six of the intruders had meant to kill  _ him _ . He could not process why his father was falling to the marble tiles. He did not understand why red streaked the gold of the king's necklace and bracers. Unthinking, he bolted to the throne and dropped to his knees, tearing at his cape to bandage the wound that poured more and more of the king out. 

"Dad?! D-Dad!" Swallowing, he forced his hands to still, his fingers rigid, crooked things around a knot of fabric. The steady gaze of his father had faded into something terrible and glassy. No, he could not understand it at all, those damn tremors trying again and again to make his grip loosen. "He needs a healer! Yubel, why aren't…? Why is no one  _ here _ ?"

Healers were positioned in the throne room, and they had understood at a glance that all was lost. The life was gone, leaving behind only a shell of matter and a face locked in an unreadable expression. Many there could not bear to look at the prince, and none but the prince could meet Yubel's eyes. 

The assassins had planned carefully, knowing they could never hope of surpassing Yubel. Yes, six of their broken bodies littered the floor around Yubel, cracked open as effortlessly as dried kindling by an axe, but their group had achieved something nonetheless. They had ended the reign of a king.

The seventh body -- the lethal one -- was an unmoving mass pinned to the floor by a jeweled longsword, the blade vertical and slick with blood. The prince would never remember when he had struck the assassin down. It was a void in his mind. 

"No… This… This  _ can't _ be…"

But those were drops of blood marring the gold of the king's bracers, more circles of red staining the blue of his tunic. The eyes that should have locked with his own did not, and, shuddering hard, the prince lowered his head. It was heavy with his grief. 

No, he did not hear Yubel approach, and the palms sliding over his shoulders were not felt. No silence could settle within the throne room -- not while the young prince wept and shook his head, as if to dispel the horrors gathering inside it. When he finally leaned back, his head remained bowed towards his chest as if he was already bearing the weight of that golden crown and letting it overwhelm him, letting this emblem of royalty chain him. Yubel drew an unfelt circle over his shoulder blades. 

Slowly, the king's hand lost what warmth had remained. Eventually, the prince rose to his feet, his jaw clenched hard and his blazing stare set on nothing. It pierced through the stone of the castle. 

\---

Any new ruler to such a rich and vibrant kingdom quickly finds themselves tested by opportunists who, much like vultures, are drawn to the presence of death. Yes, the king was young, seemingly paler and smaller than before in the dark fabric of mourning, but the king had chosen loyal advisors. He had foreseen a calamity such as this.

Those early tests were quietly dealt with, and although the king never wore the gilded crown, entombing it with his father instead, many in the castle swore in those early weeks that he had already begun to change. He answered questions directly. His presence became an unsaid command, and as his shadow, Yubel became even more elusive than before, like an intangible, haunting force that snaked through the castle as a winter's icy wind would. Although, they never left the king's side. In truth, they had never been closer to Jurian, and an arrow positioned in his direction would never have been released. The arms of its archer would have been bound at even the thought of aiming such a shot. 

Some within Alanorn did try to grasp for power nonetheless, plotting their own ascensions within the kingdom's hierarchy, but all of those stories had simple and conclusive endings. Alanorn remained whole. 

The same could not be said for Alanorn’s many allies. Treaties written with the former king's stiff letters were ignored, and allies began to quarrel over petty things, matters fueled by abstract greed. During long meetings in which maps were unfurled and populated with dark figures in wood and stone, the king watched as the continent his father had strove to hold together began to split apart. And yet, the Gentle Darkness within him had not lost its greatest property, the potential to nurture even the most delicate of hopes. 

Perhaps it was rash for Jurian to declare that, yes,  _ he  _ would go to the east where their former allies were set on waging a meaningless war. Commanders he had known since he was barely strong enough to lift a wooden practice sword were goading each other closer and closer to conflict, and not the individual kind. No, this would involve thousands. 

Because his grief refused to form words on the parchment, tears only falling instead, Jurian had not written to  _ him _ once. He thought of Johael, of course. The memory of Johael's kindness nurtured his own. 

Johael had traveled west, picking a cautious trail that zig-zagged through the lesser-known dips and crags in the mountains. Often, Cobalt perched on his shoulder, the strange clicks and hums from the great bird making him smile and laugh in turn. And while Johael was cautious about approaching other travellers, considering the unmistakable glint of Cobalt's rare feathers, he sometimes found himself running after a spooked horse, fixing a broken axle on a carriage, or offering what little food or water he had to someone in need. And it was as he took back his water flask from a sunburnt mailrider between cities that he heard the news. The title was spoken so simply, quickly rattled off as if it meant nothing at all, but to Johael, it hit with a staggering force. He dropped the flask. Water leaked over the cracked dirt below. 

"I'm sorry. I...must have heard you wrong," he said, tense and afraid. "Did..you say King  _ Jurian  _ of Alanorn?”

"Yeah, of Alanorn," the rider replied, busy adjusting his tackle. The horse tossed her head, eager to be off and galloping under the warm sun. Johael barely heard any of it. 

"You wouldn't happen to know if he's still in Alanorn, would you?"

"Oh, he shouldn't be. Last I heard, he's trying to stop Kahlheim and Darland from tearing each other apart. It's all something about a border disagreement. Those are free cities, after all."

The prince- The  _ king  _ normally sent his letters to the next destination on Johael's route, which made Johael's next question a logical one. "This is a bit...outside standard procedures, but, ah, do you have a letter for me? Johael Hayder."

"Sorry," the rider answered, shrugging as he climbed onto the saddle and patted the mare's side. "I'm afraid that my bags are full of contracts, warrants, and things like that. Are you waiting for something?"

"I… I guess. Yeah." Blinking quickly, Johael took a step back, leaving the well-packed dirt of the trail, and the rider gave him a puzzled frown. "It's fine. I'll go track down my letter-writer instead. What better way to get an update than from the source himself, right?"

With that, he took off, bursting through the underbrush and into the hollow where Cobalt waited -- safe and out of sight. His heart pounded. He tried to think. 

The warble from Cobalt sent a jolt of panic through his tight shoulders. "Hey, hey… Don't come to conclusions so quickly. I...can find a way to do both."

Another warble, and the wise eagle had caught him in a contradiction. A human could not move further west  _ and  _ further east at the same time. A decision would have to be made, and Cobalt insisted on flying alone. 

"We're not through the passage yet, and-"

Trust me, the eagle implored. He, like so many others, was a dear part of Johael's world. The force of his love won in the end, Johael stiffly nodding before kneeling down to stroke his white crest, marveling once more at how neatly the feathers all fit together. 

Go to Alanorn before heading further east, the eagle said next, and Johael nodded. But what the eagle revealed next confused him at first. After all, there couldn't  _ really  _ have been gold coins hidden by Yubel at the bottom of his bag. ...Could there?

"How did I miss this?" he whispered to himself, feeling the embossed runes and values on each one before dropping them onto the old tunic that they had been wrapped in. "Your eyes really are better than mine, Cobalt. Thanks for the save."

After a lasting embrace, Johael was off for Norlhook, a trade hub nestled where a great river split into several smaller branches, and he moved tirelessly. He abandoned all of his pack but his sword and the coins tucked inside his tunic. His plan never faltered. Striding past the steep, wooden walls of the city's outer ring, his vision had narrowed to only the guilds frequented by rich traders, because he would have bought the fastest passage possible. He would have cut the distance that remained between himself and Alanorn so quickly, his  _ need  _ to be there soul-deep. If the king had not returned, he would have surged onwards, towards the front and into his place at the new king's side, Yubel's shadow trailing over them both. 

But none of those actions came to be. 

He stopped in the middle of the street, his surroundings fading and then sinking into nothing. All was submerged under a vast, blinding white, and his mind was taken.

Pivoting, Johael strode deeper and deeper into the bustling city, the waves of light within him oscillating and building in intensity. The Light of Destruction wanted nothing less than the fall of humankind, of the  _ life  _ here that loves scraps of shade and wove such wondrous dreams to meet its final end. A conflict spanning millennia had passed into its next stage. 

From its source, it spread most effortlessly through instances of combat -- of victory and defeat. For it to start a fight here was simply a matter of drawing the longsword, letting the human body that controlled it tense, and raising it at the nearest guard who, startled, let go of a yelping street dog. Such a provocation could not go unpunished, and Johael's strikes had knocked four guards to the ground before the crowd, embracing their fear, ran for cover.

When the four guards rose again, their minds were empty, and Johael stood perfectly still -- the silver-white blade adored by the sunbeams that reached it -- as they began to fan out. The new agents of Destruction did not need to be organized. They did not need to retain any of their humanity or subtlety. Integrating was pointless.

No, all they had to do was fight and convert new minds until the fires of war razed these lands, and an unfitting smirk was made to turn the stiff muscles of Johael's face, his pupils mere dots of black against two discs of pale green. Useless, the veil fluttered to the ground, and the carrier of the Light moved through the chaotic streets uncaring of the screams that followed, unbothered by the trails of blood from wounds that had become too deep. For some agents to be brutally fought off was, of course, possible, but already Norlhook was sinking. Already had its attack reached a critical point, and there would be no recovery. 

When twilight brushed the city, inviting in the chatter of young bats and cries of nightingales, the vessel of Johael Haydar watched the colours deepen and change from the bow of a small, agile ship, the sail pulsing with the thin breeze. He did not travel east towards Jurian. Not yet.

There were more cities to turn, and turn them he did. 

\---

"Okay, they're actually signing it," Jurian observed from his vantage point, on a hillside with his personal guards and a scattering of interested nobles, advisors, and others wearing the kinds of expensive, draping robes that made both fighting and riding unnecessarily different, in his own experience. Below, with a table dragged out and positioned on the  _ exact  _ midpoint between the feuding cities, the two leaders of Kahlheim and Darland were frowning at a length of parchment containing a new agreement. In all honesty, the young king did not understand all of the details of it, but he knew it was crucial for them to sign  _ something _ . 

One of his advisors had pointed out how both free cities were very close to Alanorn’s own borders, and the implication there -- the very _thought_ of ending this with force alone -- had been terrible for him to consider. He understood the logic behind it, of course. He had even considered it himself beneath the shroud of night, and he had abandoned the possibility of war in favour of hope. 

"Not all in power have the same values as you, my dear," Yubel observed from his side, and he snorted at that.

"I didn't realize becoming an adult would involve so many  _ meetings _ ," he replied with an on-purpose whine towards the end, humor flashing across his bright eyes as he glanced over. "Some journey this has been. All the high stakes of a duel to the death but none of the fun…"

"Such cynicism doesn't suit you," Yubel commented, and he agreed with that, grinning a little with his eyes trained again on the agreement. Signatures in black ink were slowly drawn. 

"Yeah, maybe. Then again, this situation doesn't suit me either."

"Hm. Well, as a piece of good news, I highly doubt either Kahlheim and Darland will risk breaking this agreement." Yubel continued, their voice controlled and not carrying beyond the king. He still wore only black, and he still dressed as a swordsman would, no grand emblems of rank on his person. Such heavy, unnecessary items would only get in the way, after all. "By coming here so quickly, we've sent a rather direct reminder that our army, like our little convey, can mobilize very, very quickly."

"So I'm like the tutor coming in to scold the students who wouldn't stop fighting… Which… Is just  _ wrong _ ."

"See? You're becoming more of an adult everyday."

"...Sure," Jurian said, and he watched as the quarreling leaders bowed to each other, the sparse crowd beginning to clap. Inside, he only felt hollow, drained. "If I failed here, I would've had to send Johael a really messed up letter. No matter what, it's already going to be sad because of what happened to my dad, and… There's no way that I'll let it get worse. How could I tell him that even more people died because of me?"

"Dear."

"...Yeah, I know. It wasn't my fault, but I  _ still  _ didn't…" Taking a deep breath, he narrowed his eyes to mere slits. 

Official matters called, a messenger demanding their attention. More lengths of parchment were signed, and at nightfall, the circus of a political drama came to a close. Other parties from the neighbouring regions chose to rest in either city and start out in the morning, but not the procession from Alanorn. The king's decision was rooted in impatience, and yet to those who saw him depart on the bay mare as a cut of black melding with the approaching night, the decision seemed more like one of strength. He, again, was flaunting his force's mobility and loyalty. There were grumbles, of course, but not a soldier or supply carrier did more than just that. 

"The guilt is not yours alone to bear," is what Yubel rasped when the trail back had thinned, small fairy-lights conjured by the sorcerers brightening their way. To that, the king could only reach out to pass a gentle hand over Yubel's arm, his guardian then gliding out of reach. Ascending to where more shadows had gathered. 

"The challenge when I get back will be writing that letter, won't it?"

"If you have clear wishes, then simply express those. After all, you've always been very straightforward, my dear."

"...Yeah. True," he replied, and the rhythm of his horse trotting over the hard ground lulled him, his focus slipping away from where it had been held with an iron grip for too long. The longsword hanging from his thin belt was not the jewel-encrusted relic that he once swung around with a child's enthusiasm. The metal had, for him, been corrupted by the blood it had spilled, and he had asked for Yubel's help in making a new longsword. He had not intended for it to be a mirror to Johael's own. 

The composite metal had reacted strangely with the dragon fire, turning the longsword charcoal black. It needed no decoration. The grip had been a matter of practicality, as had the simple cross-design of the hilt. 

In a just universe, it would never come to know battle intimately. In such a universe, it would only know the careful, controlled strikes of its brighter mirror, but this universe was being torn asunder by a chaos as old as itself. Some dreams would remain simply dreams. Some dreams would take on the twisted garb of nightmares. 

\---

The royal procession returned mere hours before the first of the scouts -- dismounting from a foam-flecked horse and almost falling from the stiffness of his own tired body -- would arrive bearing scraps of strange, almost unintelligible news. Cities to the west were burning. Frenzied soldiers were cutting through villages and swarming out once the buildings were reduced to ash.

Answers were elusive, and yet Jurian's voice rang out in the throne room.

"We have to help. We'll march west and contain it."

"Y-Your highness," an advisor stammered out, sweat beading on his high forehead, "the latest reports are that it's spreading north as well. Our borders there aren't as strong."

"How weren't we warned  _ earlier  _ than this?" muttered a wizened healer, and another advisor replied. The king's unfailing gaze passed over each person in turn. None of them could perceive the helplessness he felt, that of someone so young and so afraid. Perhaps they simply chose not to see it. 

"This reeks of magic… A violent, fast-moving enemy could have cut down the early scouts or those who tried to flee."

"And our attention was diverted because of the dispute to the east," said another. 

The conversation continued to circle, a panic rising. "So, what is it then? A defense? Of  _ everything _ ? Even with our superior army, we can't possibly defend an entire border at  _ once _ !"

"The free cities of the east are holding."

"For  _ now _ . With the rate that these reports are coming in, many could have already been taken by… By whatever this is!"

"We should concentrate on holding the castle and our city below."

"A-And just accept the  _ loss  _ of our borders?!"

"These walls have never been broken! They can be defended, and so can the citizens if-"

The king spoke.

"This is still a kingdom that raises heroes, isn't it? What kind of... _ people  _ are we if we just stay here and let others die?" Something raw turned his voice, and he stood up, grasping at the air with one hand. The shadows favoured him. They made the unnecessary grandeur of the room fade behind them, and his expression shone, passion in his gaze. "If anything makes sense here, then let it be our actions. We're going to protect our friends. We're not going to let cruelty become  _ normal _ ."

He paused, taking a breath, and none dared to interrupt him. It was more than his title that held them back. He, above all others who had bore that same title, had a natural pull, a force that churned in the tense air. 

"From Illastrom fortress,, we can work on securing the north. At the same time, we cannot ignore what's happening to the west. We need to make sure civilians are evacuated. As many people as we possibly can  _ need  _ to be sheltered here or in the city.”

"The…" The advisor had not interrupted him, and yet the older man still flinched as if he had by accident. "Our fleet is patrolling the southern ocean. I-If we recall it, we can use the ships to move any, ah, excess civilians to the archipelago for shelter, i-if there's time, of course."

"Do it," the king ordered. He did not blink. Checking his sword with a gloved hand, he then made for the door.

He did not reach the handle, not when Yubel had blocked it as a hunched sculpture of dark thorns. It was a wordless command given to a king, and he bristled, fear piercing his wide eyes before it could be snuffed out like a candle’s weak flame.

“I’m not going to give an order that I wouldn’t do myself,” he muttered, sounding childish. He felt the same way. “Our western border is vast, and I can help defend it.”

Chairs clattered against the rich tile as advisors sprung to their feet, their horror visible. To risk losing their new ruler was unthinkable. As a blow, it would be lethal to the kingdom, all unity shattered, and their protests were shrill with urgency, with desperation. No, they could not lose him -- the king who had bowed his head, his bangs falling over his eyes. 

His thoughts ran dark -- the lives of  _ thousands  _ a responsibility that pressed down harder than ever before, and within those precious, invaluable people, there was the one person he had always believed would be okay. Any other future led to an unthinkable void, a constricting, absolute despair. A veil had been drawn over the king’s reality. It obscured so many valuable things, and the jewel that was his dear friend could already have been taken,  _ lost _ . But-

But he did step back. He listened with a patience so strained that it felt like his mind would snap alongside it, so many screams and incoherent, ugly things lodged in his too-tight throat. The available soldiers were partitioned in five units, the commanders selected quickly and called in to receive their assignments. All were experienced. All were set out following his nod, because this role was one he  _ had  _ to carry out. When the first of the mounted soldiers filed out of the main gates in a line of dark, gleaming armor and darker horses that stamped at the ground, the young king wished for the phantom touch of his father’s wide palm on his shoulder. The absence remained unfulfilled.

Later that night, he tried to escape, and Yubel emerged from the shadows before he could reach the sables. Wordlessly, they pulled him into an embrace, their claws gliding through his hair and tracing unknown characters against it. When his tears spilled over, they fell onto the ridges and dips of Yubel’s armored body, and Yubel coaxed his forehead to rest against their covered breast. 

“I can’t stay here, not when I can fight back,” was what he finally whispered, Yubel’s deep, steady breaths rolling against his chest. “But… I have to stay. If everyone doesn’t keep working together, then innocent people will die, and…” He shuddered. “I’m...a monster, aren’t I?”

At that, Yubel flinched, strongly enough that he felt it ripple down through their body, and he suddenly found himself faced with their searing eyes, two clawed hands tight on his shoulders and keeping him still. 

“Listen to me. The future is uncertain, yes, but I  _ am  _ certain that you’re still the person I fell in love with. Yes, you’re hurt. This is a trial that no ruler of Alanorn has ever faced down, and yet, my dear, I believe that we’re going to overcome it, together.”

“Yubel, I…”

“Stay with me. I’ll carry your love until the end.”

“And you’ll have it until the end,” he stated, his voice clearer than before, and he straightened, Yubel letting go. He caught one of their hands. He kissed their knuckles, his eyelashes fluttering with the motion. “I just… I’m not a hero right now, not at all.”

They stayed in silence, the castle quiet under the full roundness of the pale moon above, and when Yubel leaned down to press their lips against his forehead, the king moved faster than they did -- he kissed a path along their cheekbone. The night flowed slowly in shades of blue and grey, the castle around them tensed but hushed. He did not sleep, not when his thoughts were so  _ eager  _ to churn and swirl and build into wild storms, but he did stay at Yubel’s side, and the first delicate lights of morning found the king running towards the main gate and grabbing the reins of an incoming scout’s horse, the ashen-faced woman slipping out of the saddle seconds later. What she had to report would change their strategy.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Locations: Note that the place names here aren't too crucial to remember, since the main point is that the characters are either separated or close together. After editing this, I realized that it might be...a lot.


	4. Chapter 4

\---

In the thousands, the citizens of peaceful, well-defended cities were turning to madness, and the cause could only be magic, the ancient kind with a strength unmatched by the petty incantations of this age’s sorcerers. The most persuasive evidence came with the account of a short fight between a resisting soldier and crazed merchant -- the latter of whom had swung wildly with a blood-caked dagger against a polished broadsword -- that ended the moment the soldier pinned his opponent to the ground. The merchant had gone limp and then blinked up at the sky in horror. As if he had been sleepwalking, he had no idea where he was, what he had done, or how such a weapon had come to be in his grip. Others reports supported this theory that direct instances of defeat broke the nameless spell.

But engaging with those under that spell carried with it a serious risk -- if the opponent won instead, then the spell would be cast again. The kingdom’s greatest warriors could then become its strongest adversaries.

To make matters worse, not all clashes with the enemy ended in bloodless victories and defeats, like sparring matches between novices with wooden swords and hawkish referees. No, those enraged by this spell fought recklessly, leaving bodies strewn over streets like crumpled red leaves in the autumn, and the king listened with his teeth clenched, his heart in pain. The converging waves of chaos had to be stilled.

More soldiers were needed, even though so many had been sent already, and when the king spoke, his advisors’ faces tightened into grimaces.

“We’ll send the royal guards. If we close the gates, this castle can be defended with fortifications like our ballistas and just a few archers, not to mention Yubel’s fire. The city below has enough of a militia for its own walls. If strong fighters are needed to convert people who _need_ our help, then it’s pointless to keep them here, isn’t it?” 

The advisors knew that he was correct, and yet the mere _suggestion_ of dismissing the king's guard was alarming on its own. Their fears were eased by Yubel, of course, but those fears existed nonetheless, as if his father's own sad fate would befall him next. 

The composition of the castle changed greatly as the days crawled by. Emptied of its many chargers, the stable became so quiet that it seemed abandoned, the few lingering work horses like specters from a simpler past. Scared civilians took refuge within the walls, and more found refuge in the harbour city. With them came an aura of despair. Their villages, after all, could have already been reduced to ash. Their families could have already become like scattered leaves, never again to return to the tree that unified them, that bore them. And, yes, the king remained wracked by his many guilts, but he was always the first to snap out orders for more housing, for more healers to aid the newcomers. Many of the refugees were shocked when they realized that the determined young man flitting so quickly through their groups was, in fact, of royal blood. He had shed the cocoon-like propriety of his higher class. Blood gathered under his nails from quickly tying cloth bandages around fresh wounds, just as it did under the nails of those who followed his commands.

On a tense, cold morning, Yubel’s superior eyes spotted the smoke drifting about Osternia, for which there was no explanation. The small village had already been evacuated. The king had ordered it himself, and, seized by his confusion, he turned away from Yubel to stare at the many people lingering inside the keep. Now that he had a moment to reflect, he couldn’t recall seeing the warden amongst any of the newcomers.

Or the orphans.

The king indulged in a brutal self-hatred. _How_ had he not noticed that? _How_ could he have missed something so obvious and so dearly, _crucially_ important? Stress had been a blindfold over his eyes.

“Yubel, were any of the villagers from Osternia moved? Like… To one of the ships? Or to one of the free cities?”

“No,” they replied, and the king bit down on nothing. Damn it. _Damn_ it.

“I’m the fastest rider we have now.” He continued before Yubel could protest, his gaze steeled. “If the enemy somehow moved past our defenses, then we _have_ to know and prepare, and, more than that, more than _anything_ , we have to make sure none of the villagers were left behind. They shouldn’t have been, but…” Pivoting, he would have run for the stables, but Yubel’s whisper carried over to him. The orange-green fires had dimmed.

“I can fly faster than any rider.”

When he turned back, hope had changed the tension underlying his features, and to Yubel, he could not be compared to anyone or anything else. Their fused heart beat for him, as it always would.

“I’m coming with you,” he said.

Their answer was a slight snarl, because, no, he could not be countered, not like this. Dropping to one knee, Yubel waited until he had folded himself into their arms, and then they were gone, high above the puzzle of the castle while the verdant forest below spun. Before, with Jurian close like this while their wings steadily beat, Yubel had hovered and let the landscape unfold itself to his eager, dazzled eyes, taking in the blue-green curve of the ocean and the clustering peaks of distant mountains. In those earlier days, he had yearned for adventure, and such an expansive sight -- a view normally saved for agile birds and quick-winged bats -- was a small shard of his dream that Yubel had given him with the purity of their love.

But now, there was no time for such thoughts, the trees blurring together when Yubel pumped their wings down, shooting forward with unblinking eyes towards the wisp of grey smoke above Osternia. A fire had broken out, snaking across a thatched roof as a lick of orange-red, and their arms tensed around the king at the unmistakable ‘CLANG’ of metal against metal from somewhere below: too low for human ears but reaching theirs as a shrill cry. Although they trusted Jurian’s abilities as a fighter down to their very bones and sinews, the action of leaving him on the ground went against the full, screaming force of their draconic instincts.

“We have to-”

“I’ll get the fire,” they grumbled, adjusting their strong wings and circling down. “Be careful.”

“I know,” he answered, and then Yubel’s hold went slack. He dropped to the ground, not looking back as he whirled around the narrow streets with his longsword bared, the tapered surface consuming any scraps of faint light that fell upon it. Through the morning mist, phantom shapes staggered -- forked sticks of blue-grey. Gritting his teeth, he approached on silent steps, prickles of impatience working their way up the back of his neck. 

There.

A broadsword crashed against his longsword as he spun in place, digging his heels in and forcing his blade higher and higher. In a flash, he had the better angle, the dominant one, and he went for the reversal, twisting his grip before he suddenly ducked and rammed his shoulder into his opponent’s chest. It staggered them, and with another strike of metal, he ripped the broadsword out of those clenched hands. He drove forward again with unseeing eyes. He knocked his opponent to the ground, and the winded man below him -- older with deep scars across his forehead and a bruise stamped on his jaw -- lost all resistance. It melted from him limb by limb.

With a harshness that pained him, the king pulled the pale, unsettled man to his feet and shoved him towards a narrow gap between two houses. “Hide yourself and don’t move until I return. Understand?”

“W-Where are-?”

“Do you understand?” he repeated, biting off the words, and the man stared back, absently raising his arms to hug himself. When he took a single step towards the gap, his bare feet caked with dirt and flaking red, the king whirled away and continued towards the orphanage -- a white-washed building with a chipped half-circle sign over the wide entrance. He checked over his shoulder, obeying the paranoid feeling that now openly clawed at his neck and spine. Although it had been reduced in intensity, the rooftop fire remained a searing orange cut over the gentle greys and blues of the village in morning, and the king did not blink when the attack came. Parry. Dive. He rolled under a farm axe being wielded with blind abandon, and he dodged a second weapon, a rusted scythe. 

Driving the pommel back, he heard a pained gasp, a body falling limp next. With a fast counter, he made the farmer drop the scythe, the woman’s glazed pupils expanding as she staggered back. Her fingers were raw. The man at her feet groaned and raised his head, his bandanna sliding off. 

“...Huh? What are-?”

“Hide and wait for me to return,” the king ordered, raising his longsword at a distant ‘snap’. Perhaps a foot over a dry stick. He waited, tensed. Nothing came, and-

“H-Huh? What _happened_?!” the woman yelped, turning her hands over. “I… I don’t-”

“You _have_ to hide,” the king heard himself yell, and his stance became more and more defensive while the blood pounded louder and louder in his ears. The persistent musk of hay and animals that lingered in these streets contrasted too vividly with the bitter remains of the fire, curls of ash drifting through the mist. 

The woman wailed down at her red hands, and the man, stiffly rising to his knees, shook his head back and forth. "My wife… Where is she? Where would she-?"

"You have to listen to me." The king had wanted those words to be tight and controlled, and yet the effect was too strong. He sounded bloodless, and the fear of the panicked villagers wove itself into new, terrifying shapes. He continued. "I'm Jurian Yahl, King of Alanorn. You _will_ hide.”

To those who stared back, his funeral blacks seemed more like those of an executioner, the smooth blade clutched in one gloved hand like a piece of obsidian wrenched from the earth. His expression revealed nothing but that inhuman level of control, his warm eyes distorted until they glowed crimson and gold. Huddling into each other, the villagers were indeed strangers -- the woman from a free trade city across the border and the man a farmer from the north -- but they became unified by their fears, as those fears were suddenly so alike. 

After the two had stumbled behind a stack of crates and collapsed to the ground, the king took off again, carefully rotating with his longsword high as he approached the orphanage's entrance. Only, the wide doors did not move. Through a section of splintered wood, he could see the outlines of desks and benches, combined into a barricade. 

His heart clenched, a seedling of hope extending its young roots down.

Circling to the back of the building, he found the path that his dear friend had once described -- the foothold was behind the stump of a fallen elm tree, and the next grip was just under the lip of the second-story window. The closed shutters, weathered from age, obediently sprung open when Jurian smacked at the right one with the pommel of his sword, although it was difficult to haul himself in. His body fought against the movement. His arms ached, the bones inside rattled from those hurried blocks. And yet, no pain could stop him, not when his thoughts were racing even faster than his desperate heart.

Once inside, he pulled the shutters closed. Enough light spilled through the minute cracks to illuminate the room, and he had wanted to quickly stride out of it and search for the warden. He had wanted to confirm that the missing villagers from Osternia were safe. 

On the pale wooden desk were jars of dried lavender and iridescent shells in a row. Above were dried bundles of herbs and flowers, all muted with age and curling in on themselves. At the very center of the desk was an ink well and a simple quill positioned neatly over a black-splattered cloth. A collection of feathers had been carefully displayed near the far wall with string, forming a complex mobile that hovered over the narrow bed, the top blanket covered with a thin layer of dust. 

Johael's room had been kept for him.

Many of Jurian's own letters were in a ribbon-tied stack that was half-hidden by the pillow. Even though he remained frozen by the window, he could still read the messy scrawl of his own greeting on the top letter. But after another beat passed, he couldn't, not with his vision blurred. He passed a palm over his eyes. He pressed hard enough to hurt. He dug the heel of his hand into the socket, as if that alone would keep the tears back. 

Since the violence had begun to spread as a stain over the continent, Jurian had tried to escape again and again, sometimes making it as far as the main gates with his readied horse before he would be stopped. His own thoughts had turned him back over and over again, his responsibilities a chain that pulled on him too strongly to be ignored. Once, a stablehand had surprised him by meeting him there with a second horse readied, the young boy announcing that he would escort the king if no one else would. The devotion in that gaze had shaken him, his knife-like guilt twisting deeper into his chest and leaving behind a raw, aching void.

No, he had never made it past the gates, each failed attempt stoking the desperation that he could barely keep contained behind his teeth. His heart bled so freely for Yubel, the one whose keen eyes always watched as he tried not to break open during war meetings and reports of new deaths. His own _weakness_ must have caused them such pain, and still they could be so calm, the still lake to his twisting river.

Even now, Yubel steadied him. Even the thick air of this sealed room carried the scent of the burnt roof, and if they were still trying to save others, to fight against the burgeoning chaos in this beloved place, then so would he. 

He took a step forward. He took another. 

His footsteps echoed down the plain hallway, and the doors he opened all led into rooms frozen in time -- bed covers hastily thrown back, scraps of clothing hanging off of crude chairs or left in piles on the creaking floor. At the sound of a stifled shout, he moved faster, silent as a wraith, and when he passed into the large, circular room at the end of the hall, he found himself faced with a cluster of tear-streaked faces, the children all clinging to the arms and legs of the old warden. Five dogs barked in alarm, their muzzles all streaked with white and more than one missing a leg, and other animals had found sanctuary with the small group. A goat with one chipped horn waddled close to him on its damaged leg -- held stiffly in a wooden split -- and bleated, adding to the cacophony. 

“Calm down,” the warden grumbled, absently swatting a three-legged goat away from her skirts. “If he was going to attack us like the others, he would have already. Your highness, we-”

“Why are you _here_?”

At his bitten-off question, the children stilled, and the dogs only barked louder. “Osternia is such a short ride from the castle. I’ve been through raids before, and I thought that we’d have enough notice if an enemy advanced to-”

If the king had Yubel’s strength, he would have shattered the grip of his sword.

“You were warned. I _know_ you were told to evacuate.”

“Yes, and it seems that I delayed more than I should have, which-”

“You’ve kept Johael’s room for him,” the king stated, unblinking with his intense focus turning the angles of his face knife-sharp. “If he had come back, then he would be the person here yelling at you right now for making a _stupid_ decision that put innocent lives at risk. Tell me, would you listen to him? Would you _trust_ him if he told you that staying here can hurt people?” He continued before she could answer, the shadows on the floor splaying out. “Get everyone ready to leave. When I’m back, we’re heading out no matter what. I’m not going to let Johael return to find the place where he grew up in ruins, and I’m _not_ going to let anyone else die.”

Her jaw was tight, the argument crackling in the air, but she nodded nonetheless. And-

A thud sounded from the bottom floor, followed by another that trailed off into a wooden crack, and the king was already hurling himself down the stairs, his glowing eyes quickly darting towards the sealed doors as they groaned under another hit. They broke at the hinges, and the blockade of furniture was thrown aside when a knight in full plate armor strode forward, his bulwark shield raised and accompanied by a spiked mace. Towering, the crest of the knight’s full helmet -- the visor down, leaving only two small grids of holes for vision -- scraped the door frame as he passed under it, and after a deep, rumbling laugh, he advanced, hefting the mace higher. 

“For the sake of destruction,” the knight began, and the walls shook when he dropped the bulwark, using both hands to wield the mace, “I will end the reign of a king. Fight back if you can.”

“Huh, so brainwashed people _can_ use banter. That should make our little exchange more interesting,” the king replied, but it was an act, as if slipping into old habits would reverse time. But, no. Upstairs there were still defenseless children with dolls and wooden toys tucked into the belts around their tunics. Those old dogs with their pale muzzles and floppy ears could never take down a threat like this, brave as they may be. 

The staircase was at his back. The rectangular main room afforded him no advantages, the scattered bits of furniture all clumsily hacked together and wooden. Only embers remained in the hearth.

The knight charged, and then he swung, the impact breaking the floorboards and sending up splinters while the king, rolling, gained precious distance. But the knight’s strides were long, the weight of the plate armor seemingly nonexistent, and the next swing should have taken more time. It should have fallen with the force of a great tree and, consequently, made the weapon difficult to wrench free again. 

And yet this reality had changed its rules, because the knight advanced and advanced and carved down what space the king secured. Desks scratched with the initials of children were reduced to splinters. When he threw a chair, hoping for even the _smallest_ pause, the knight batted it away with one wrist. The shattered pieces rained down, and the king dodged again, willing himself to be lighter. To be _more_ than he already was.

He switched the longsword to a one-handed grip, his dominant hand flat on the floor as he raised himself, balancing carefully. The knight turned again, a fortress of molded metal with chainmail glittering in the gaps. A single _flaw_ would have been enough to create an opening, and the king tightened his grip, his legs tensing. 

The hit that landed clipped only his shadow, and, spinning, he braced himself again, his back to the dying fire, and- 

He had it.

“You know, it takes a lot of… Let’s call it ‘nerve’,” he began, idly waving one hand as he stepped back. If his earlier glance was correct, then there was a small metal shovel next to the hearth, probably used to collect the ash afterwards and scrap the stone clean. “It takes a lot of _nerve_ to show up to a duel in full plate. I would’ve appreciated a warning, to be honest.”

“A warning wouldn’t have saved you,” the knight replied, emotionless. He lifted the mace again. Wood fell from it. “I will end your line here.”

“I mean, you can _try_.”

The swing went high, and it could have so easily bashed against Jurian’s skull, crumbling it like a fired clay pot. 

He had dropped to the ground and reached back with his free hand, feeling for the shovel’s handle, grasping it, and then yanking it forward. Embers and ash and flakes of charred wood all slid together, and the king did not hesitate, raising the shovel and emptying its contents against the knight’s closed visor, particles slipping through the square holes. The reaction was all rage. The flurry of wild throws and turns had the king ducking and diving faster than before, his eyes unseeing and his mind a void, only black. He stepped right. He moved further into the knight’s range. He ducked under the mace.

At the knight’s back, the king struck, driving his foot down against the bend of the knight’s right knee as if he were stamping out a fire. He had anticipated the reaction, the crazed speed at which the knight tried to pivot, and he stopped it, ramming his shoulder against the knight’s back and finally, _finally_ toppling the metal soldier. With a sickening crack, the knight’s helmet clipped the top of the stone hearth, and he crumpled in place, hard enough that Jurian felt the impact rise up from the soles of his feet. 

His stomach twisted.

Had...he just killed someone? Here, in the ground-floor gathering place at the orphanage where his friend had grown up? Had laughed?

Oh. Right, he thought. He shook his head. Yes, he had killed someone before, in the throne room. Only, back then, he had never even felt the sword in his hands. His tendons protested from the intensity of the grip, as if the faint pain was comforting.

He shook his head again, and he watched himself kick the mace away. He knew that he was circling the still body with a soldier’s trained gaze. He knew without turning around that Yubel was in the doorway, the street behind them blanketed by a pervasive silence. Upstairs, the animals had stopped barking and snapping in fright. 

Next to the hearth were lines tracking the children’s heights as they grew, and those in blue were Johael’s. Stray ash marred their neat order. Below, the knight had not moved, and Yubel’s clawed hands rounded his shoulders, directing him back until their scent drifted in. Rattling, the joints of the knight’s right hand tightened and then loosened, and Yubel’s touch remained as the knight hurriedly flipped up his visor and violently coughed.

“I’m okay,” the king said quietly, and their claws began to lift. “I can handle this.”

“If you’re certain, then I’ll be observing the area from the roof, checking for any stray attackers. Come out when you’re ready.”

“I will,” he answered, and the knight below shook, retching. Alanorn’s own knights had panels of red on their armor, and the heraldic marks lining the helmet told Jurian that he must have come from the far north, somehow flitting through the cracks in the kingdom’s border defenses and making it so close to the castle itself. More seconds dragged past, until finally the knight caught his breath and rose. 

Immediately he stumbled, his proud features in an expression of pure disbelief.

“E-Excuse me, I did not realize I was in the esteemed presence of King Jurian of Alanorn.”

“Believe me, I’m not interested in following protocol right now,” the king muttered back, and then he sheathed his longsword. “”You’re a long way from home, and I’m sure you have questions about that, but we don’t have time. There are innocent people who need to be protected.”

“Oh, yes. Of course I will aid those who need me,” the knight answered, and the king wanted to end the conversation there, as if that would banish the phantom image of a motionless, defeated man that lingered and pressed over this reality. Even though the knight remained focused on him, he could see how those narrowed eyes took in the state of the room -- furniture reduced to firewood, the boards below them cracked. Dust and bits of wood clung to the king’s own cape, and the knight spoke before he could reach the staircase. “I-I must apologize. My memory is failing me, but it looks as though I have-”

“It’s fine. You’re not the first person to try and hit me with something pointy today,” the king replied, clipped and sarcastic, and from there, he tried not to think about the battle with the knight, or about the image that refused to _disappear_. Pieces of it tried to float in front of his eyes, like a mote of dust or bit of ash from a raging bonfire. With small bags over their shoulders and worn-down jackets tightly buttoned over their simple tunics, the children were waiting on the landing, the dogs again barking out their warnings.

Animals usually liked him. 

Or, rather, they usually liked a different version of him, one that looked more like a human being than a living shadow.

“The retired work horses from the fields will have to be brought in,” was how the warden greeted him, a yowling cat in her strong arms. “There’s also the sheep to think about, if the danger really is what you say it is.”

“We’ll take everyone with us,” he replied. 

It was what Johael would have done.

\---

The fire had been caused by a fight breaking out between a farmer holding a lantern and an invader wielding a rusted sword. Yubel had ended the prolonged, ugly fight very simply -- they had swooped down and slammed the invader against a wall, holding him by the neck until his eyes had lost their mad sheen. In total, thirty villagers had remained in Osternia, the other adults all making excuses cut from the same cloth as the warden’s own, and all twelve of the invaders had been converted without notable injuries. There were no deaths to report, although, while Yubel had flown high to look for other invaders, it remained far, far too possible that more invaders would emerge from the dense woods, cloaked by the gnarled trees.

Three stablehands on horseback arrived from the castle as their reinforcements. The king had never moved in a convoy like this, one with crying children and stubborn elders piled into grain carts and jostling for space next to lambs, chickens, and geese. Here there were no riders to hold heraldic banners high, nor were there bards strumming their instruments. The snorts and stamped hooves from the impatient horses murmured below the higher calls of the farm animals. Embarrassed, one of the stablehands admitted that they had forgotten to ready and bring the king's favoured mare with them, and the stallion he rode at the front of the convoy thrummed with barely restrained energy, the horse tossing his head repeatedly. 

The convoy could only move slowly. Far above, as a dash of colour against the grey sky, Yubel was on guard and endlessly, endlessly searching for new sources of harm. Like the animal stamping at the dirt below him, the king was impatient to put the village far behind them. Emptied, the invaders were unlikely to take interest in it, and any who dared to venture further and meet the castle or its harbour city’s walls would be dealt with swiftly. No pain would reach the lives of Osternia.

The king would seal the chaos of these lands away.

He swore that he would, the promise wracked and molded by the rage desperate to crawl up his throat, even though now was not the time for such declarations. Behind him was a simple cart full of innocents and drawn by two shaggy draft horses. In front of him was a narrow path that reached past the rolling fields and into the dark woods. 

The converted knight, despite being from a different land, had protested when Jurian had taken his place at the front of the convoy, as if proprietary mattered here. As if every sword wasn't needed to keep these lives safe. 

"Do you have any news about him?"

The question came from his left, the warden riding an old horse with a wild, curling mane, and the king turned away before other details could pour in, his eyes trained on the path and the dangers that bordered it. 

"If anyone finds Johael, I'll hear about it.”

"The last time he was staying at your castle, he did come to visit us for an afternoon. He had small presents for the children." Gritting his teeth, the king said nothing. Her voice did not calm him. "I’m not sure how the conversation got there, but eventually the children were talking about what they wanted to do as adults. You know, baker, blacksmith, and so on.”

Again, the king said nothing. His stare bored into the dirt of the path. It cut through the stones strewn across it, and it tunneled deep, deep into the earth.

Distantly, he heard the wind rush through the branches. In elongated, hand-like shapes, they grasped at one another over the path.

“Johael told us that he wanted to become a knight,” the warden stated, and the king adjusted his hold on the reins. He kept the horse’s trot consistent, and, no, he did not speak a word in return. Not yet, not when his anxieties had become thorns in his throat. "A dream like that would be impossible for most common-born children, and _especially_ so for an orphan, but he's never fit into the world so neatly. Even in the early days, he-"

"That's enough." It was barely a whisper, but behind it was an unbreakable command. He did not turn. He did not feel the snarl contorting his mouth, and the warden dropped back. He could hear the change. 

If he blinked, the fallen knight was lying there like a broken toy.

From the earliest days of his training, Jurian had been warned by his father to always fight cautiously, as even a friendly match carried with it the potential for dishonor and death. Dueling was a necessary skill for a noble-born child, and more than that, beyond those shackle-like expectations, he _loved_ it. He lived for the balanced glide of a sword in his hands. He craved the thrill of an arena's dance, each competitor testing the other while showing more and more of their own mind, their own soul. 

Or that was how he used to feel about dueling. He had once been a starry-eyed boy inside a fairytale castle, someone for whom death was only a plotpoint in a made-up story. 

When the convoy was sighted, the scouts on the city walls sounded their horns and began opening the gates, the space beyond filled with the colours of spring. Other villagers had gathered for their return, and flowers were thrown at the stallion’s hooves, resounding cheers sparked by what was seen as a miraculous return. The king could not smile, and he vanished quickly, his head down as he took a secretive path to the castle and ascended the right tower. He stopped only to slam his closed fist against the stone, and Yubel found him collapsed at his desk, his inkwell overturned and his fingers smeared with black. The parchment shoved to the side remained blank. 

All the pressed flowers from Johael were displayed on the wall, and if he glanced up, the king knew that he would cry again. He did not want to, and when Yubel approached with a soft rustle of their wings, they clenched their teeth at the pain spilled so vividly across his face. It was like streaks of blood from a deepening wound. 

"I'm sorry for my weakness," he said without moving, his forehead against the wooden surface. Exhaustion made his hands shake, and so Yubel dutifully covered them with their own. They directed Jurian's hands into his lap, and then they lifted him from the chair, his body slack and melding easily with their own. The clamor from outside still reached them here, filtering through the arrowslits and small gaps in the stone, and so Yubel moved deeper inside the king’s chambers, pulling curtains and closing doors as they went. They made barriers against the outside world’s many sounds, and when they passed into the king’s bedroom, the tiered bed piled high with rich blankets and down pillows, it was as if they had pulled the majesty of a starlit sky in with them. In the dim light, the shadows were free to paint the walls in greys and blues, and Yubel’s wings formed a cocoon over the king when they laid him down.

The king had not slept properly in weeks, his nights wracked by competing forms of pain. Memories. Regrets. Dreams. For Yubel with their small world, all circumscribed by a simple line and containing so few souls, such burdens were mere raindrops on their armor compared to the soul-wrenching trial of watching their love be in such pain. Soothing his shoulders with their carefully angled claws, they allowed their eyes to close for a moment, only a moment as if every footstep from this bedroom to the tower’s outer door were a galaxy -- a distance so vast, too vast for a human mind, and leaving them as a stranded pair who were safe in each other.

They had snapped orders to the advisors before coming here, ensuring for now that the king could rest. He was clothed so wonderfully in this form of darkness, the shadows gathering in thick rivulets over them both, and Yubel stayed here, their breaths timed perfectly with the long, even ones that Jurian took, until he began to stir. Alone in this high tower room, they were the sole occupants of a universe with very few rules, if any. Here, there could be no conflict. No betrayal. No bloodshed. Curling closer to them, Jurian yawned a little, and tension began to snake its way up his lithe frame, settling in his shoulders.

“Hey, we can’t be here,” he mumbled, his pout audible, and Yubel drew a line over his shoulder blades.

“Oh? Why not?”

“Because there are...people who need housing. Space will also need to be made for the animals, and…” Sighing, he leaned into Yubel’s touch before intentionally shifting away, his pupils wide in the dark. "More ships will be here in a few days too. There's a lot to prepare."

"Hmm… True…"

"...Which means that I can't start acting like an overgrown housecat," he said, frowning with his hair sticking up in all directions. When Yubel laughed, his frown deepened. "You were petting me like one just now, so I think the comparison fits pretty well, doesn't it?"

"Now you're acting more like a grumpy housecat," Yubel observed before tugging him closer again, the king letting out a muffled _'H-Hey!'_ against their chest. Perhaps it was indulgent to do so. Perhaps they wanted to cling to this universe in miniature for a few seconds longer, a dragon's greed strengthening such impulses until they felt more like needs. Stroking his wayward hair, they spoke against the crook of his neck, the soft words brushing his skin. "My dear, if there’s anything I can do to ease your heart, then ask me. I’m yours, just as you’re mine.”

"Yubel…" He shifted against them, his hands clasping over the small of their back, and they felt him breathe in. "It’s… Well, today I...almost killed someone who had done nothing wrong. He was brainwashed, and…" A faster breath, shallower than before. "This is happening everywhere. I know it is, and… I hate it so much.”

“I understand.”

“I’m going to erase whatever caused this,” he rasped next, and Yubel could only hold him, the tension within him rising. His shoulders shook, and when he finally rolled to the edge of the bed, they took in the sharp cut of his profile -- his teeth clenched, his downcast eyes devoid of all light. “I swear to you, Yubel. I’ll become strong enough to restore peace to the lands that my father protected, whatever it takes, and I’ll find Johael. I have to.”

Their wings rasped against the blankets below as they raised themselves, and, yes, this universe of theirs had broken open, their keen ears picking up the muffled ‘thunk’ of someone, likely a messenger, fumbling with the outer door. Before he walked ahead, the king stopped to take their hand and pressed a close-mouthed kiss to the ridge of their knuckles. When his eyes fluttered open again, they were those of a king before his royal court. Their sheen was that of a polished shield, and Yubel matched his steps as he continued through the tower, the cape flowing behind him still flecked with mud and dirt from the long ride with the convoy. 

“Wait,” they said, and they stopped to run their hands over the fabric, bits of debris crumbling and falling until all was again a pristine black. And, again, the king ducked his head, taking their right hand with a grasp so loose and so gentle that it made them gasp, staggered for the thousandth time by an expression of his earnest heart. To protect him was more than just a vow. It was their existence, and, with a nod, they followed him outside into a courtyard strewn with blocks of harsh natural light and segmented by the rigid shadows that tempered them, that defined and contained their spread.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh.... Jurian.... ;___;
> 
> This fic is a real experiment for me. Although I have written [fantasy knight stuff](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21184391/chapters/50426249) before, I don't usually shift the POV around so much. It's been a learning experience!
> 
> As always, thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, **please note the warnings for this fic**. If any of these warnings could potentially be upsetting for you as a reader, then please stop reading here. Thank you.  
> Updates: The epilogue for this needs more revision. While I’m putting up two chapters now (5 and 6), there should still be another one or two to finish the fic off.

\---

The Light of Destruction fought back with a brutal simplicity.

Military strategies honed over generations were useless against roving bands of unceasing, unthinking innocents, and the gameboard of the continent shifted in sudden ways. To the east, the free cities of Kahlheim and Darland were struggling, each on the verge of falling to the invaders and then overwhelming its neighbours. The king had sent support. The walls of his own castle were barren -- the salt-scented wind streaking across expanses of clean stone. 

On one grey morning, he found himself the ruler of a castle and the harbour city beyond it that were both close to empty. Following the return of the fleet, he had ordered for many of the vulnerable citizens to be taken to the archipelago. Trade posts for the kingdom had been constructed on the larger islands, and they had been fortified to ward off scattered pirate attacks. Storage rooms intended for barrels of ale and crates of precious spices could be converted into living spaces for those displaced. The drain on the posts’ supply caches could be offset by increased fishing and the gathering of marine plants.

Or, at least, that’s what the king’s advisors had told him, their calculations sounding less like reassurances over time and more like misplaced assumptions. After all, no one wanted to consider the negative possibilities for longer than necessary, not with their borders so weak to interlopers, to potential carriers of more death.

No one wanted to consider that they were endorsing a foolish order, many lives dependent on its integrity. For the king -- who had watched the boats fill with their new passengers and checked the streets himself for stragglers -- the main advantage this plan held was in the  _ distance  _ that the civilians would gain from these chaotic lands. Yes, challenges would await them on the voyage and after their landing, but they would not see it if invaders tried to climb the castle’s walls. They would not see it if more fires were sparked and fanned out over the emerald woods, leeching them of their brilliant colours. Repeatedly, the king had been approached by emotional sailors and civilians alike, all swearing through their tears that his rule was their source of strength. They trusted him. They cheered for the fall of his shadow.

In comparison, the current emptiness of the castle made his thoughts run clearer, the quiet so thick that it had gained an almost tangible presence. The quiet shielded his pained heart much like Yubel would in his rare moments of rest, their body encircling his and making him dizzy with their scent and their warmth. 

Although, a solitary morning like this could not be a time of rest, not when he needed to untangle competing strategies and search, again and again, for an advantage. Like a great bird, Yubel was far above him, scanning for changes on the horizon. 

The north was precarious. The fortress at Illastrom had almost fallen, legions of crazed mercenaries, villagers, and fallen knights crashing hard against its outer walls. The more brazen of the nobles had whispered of retreating from the continent itself: essentially  _ giving  _ it over to this evil, abandoning the mystery of its source, and leaving so many lives in ruins. Such voices did not reach his ear now, given that those same nobles and the cowards who supported them had been the first to board the boats.

The king would not dare to assume that the archipelago would forever be safe. Reports had come in of strange boats haunting the rivers and shorelines, several outfitted with cannons, others with iron-reinforced bows for ramming. Vulture-like mercenaries, perhaps. Or maybe an undiscovered nation preparing to pounce on a weakened foe. 

To the king’s strategic mind, Alanorn seemed like the divided enemy’s point of convergence. And, from the very castle he stood in now, that evil could gather itself. It could strengthen itself before spilling more of its madness across the world, as if pillaging the lives of innocents was insufficient, their sacrifice simply not enough for its leviathan hunger.

A low fog swelled below the treeline. Tilting his head, the king walked down a long section of the wall with echoing steps. On the edge of wakefulness, he had found himself gasping out Johael’s name, the visions he saw etched in blood, and as someone wearied by conflict and death, his ability to blink such horrors away had become strained.

Again and again, he saw the fallen knight, only the face inside the helmet had become different. Shaggy hair. Green eyes.

Stopping, Jurian let his gloved hand drag over the unforgiving stone, and that’s when he saw it -- a flash of something alive surging through the mist and weaving in between the trees. Immediately his teeth were clenched, his jaw working as if to reduce them to useless shards, and when he shouted, Yubel was already diving in a stream of purple-black. They sank into the forest, and he waited in agony. 

Yubel’s wings parted the mist when they shot up again, and they were carrying someone -- a scout huddled in her own torn cloak, the soles of her boots split and fused in places with patches of blood. Even though Yubel landed carefully, the woman still bit down on a pained cry.

“Y-Your highness! They’re coming from the north! T-The survivors! A-And they have enemies after them!”

Cold seeped through him.

“What else can you tell me?” he asked, and the woman seized her right arm tightly, the bandages there reduced to only loose threads, all stained darkly. When he rushed to cover the wound himself, she violently shook her head. 

“Illastrom cannot support the supply lines to the north. The cities beyond the border are… A-Are all abandoned to dust and ruin, and the people, they are coming. Families. Children. Elders. All scared and protected only by what knights come across them. M-Most of those knights have already been injured, and…” She inhaled sharply, her body contorted. “I-If they’re converted, we’ll have hundreds of enemies rampaging inside our borders. Your highness, please. Please save them!”

Wordlessly, the king knelt in front of Yubel and spread his arms. His gaze had locked with their own, and he witnessed it when the realization hit them, so many shards of orange and blue-green suddenly turning hard. Their top lip pulled back, revealing their curved fangs, and, yes, he saw the pain. He endured it, waiting for Yubel to pass the scout into his care. Because he would stay here -- a fragile and slow human whereas his dear love was neither. 

“Jurian,” they snarled, their wings twitching.

“You can confirm if this information is correct faster than anyone else,” he heard himself say. “If it is true, then you can protect them until they reach our walls. Yubel, I can’t let anymore of these people d-”

“I will act as your blade. That has  _ always  _ been certain,” they answered, and they leaned forward, the scout’s face ashen as the king supported her weakened body. Yubel’s gaze would have reduced a hesitant heart into nothing but shreds of once-living matter. The orange burned as a fire capable of drying the oceans, and Jurian, unthinking, kissed their forehead, just under their third eye that always stared through the world, an embodiment of the eternal sentinel whom the king loved. 

The soft fall of the king’s hair reminded them of golden mornings and flickering firelight, and because every second wasted would lead to regrets, they took flight without another word, as any declaration of love would have been so small and  _ insignificant  _ compared to burning devotion that flowed through their merged veins. They burst across the pale sky, their wings two frenzied blurs in black and violet, and the lone figure waiting beneath a grand willow -- his saddled white horse pacing restlessly under the catkins -- tilted his head back, the alien consciousness inside him assessing the mad speed at which their adversary bolted from the castle.

For such an emergency to occur had been predictable. After all, the Light had purposefully cleared the way for that lone scout, all while keeping its host under the thickest patches of the forest to avoid the gaze of Alanorn’s strongest guard. More than that, it had encouraged the fires of the north to spread, leading to a disaster that would finally force the king to order Yubel away. Jurian had a kind heart. It was wonderfully malleable.

The pieces were in place: the carrier of the Gentle Darkness was isolated, with both his father and his guardian removed.  _ Killing  _ Yubel was a seemingly insurmountable task, no matter the skill of this body, and the convenient death of Jurian’s father had removed the Light’s need for more, ah,  _ difficult  _ preparations. The opportunity had shone, dazzling in its intensity, and the Light had seized it eagerly. 

The continent was falling into ruin, further solidifying the  _ force  _ of that isolation, and all that remained was a boy’s hope -- green and fragile and shriveling in its poisoned soil. 

Leisurely, Johael stood up, pausing to brush bits of dried grass and dirt off of his riding pants. It had only seemed appropriate to don pure white for such a momentous occasion. Over the high-collared tunic, he wore a half-cape without unnecessary adornment, as the many clasps and trinkets adored by the noble class would have distracted from the faultless colour. No veil obscured his vision now, the full power of this ancient force pouring through his eyes and slowly overcoming more and more of the vibrant green. 

Before, the untamed animals of the forest would have gathered around this person, but even the curious ravens and weasels darted away from him now, their instincts warning strongly of ‘danger’. When he mounted the white horse, she pinned her ears back and cut away at the dirt below with her hooves. To an outsider, the rider’s appearance would have been that of a ballad’s heroic prince, his handsome face serene and his broad shoulders rolled back. Only, there was a flaw, so elusive that would have been imperceptible to many humans. To look upon him was similar to gazing at a grand painting while on the verge of realizing that it commemorated a villain. A butcher. 

He rode along one of the many thin paths circling Alanorn’s castle, the way shadowed by the childish outlines of Johael’s past. Here he had run with the young prince, trying to race against Yubel for the sheer fun of it. In the slight ditch by the next dip in the road, he had once found a rare toad and babbled about its colouration to his confused friends. Now he passed the river that Yubel had once tossed the prince into, a memory that had often made Johael laugh quietly to himself while climbing steep hills, while navigating distant roads and trying to ignore his pangs of a new loneliness. 

Of course, the Light itself was not capable of such petty emotions, and it noted with a vindictive smile that, yes, the castle was close to defenseless. The few guards remaining did not notice Johael until he was waiting by the main gate, and both who called out to him had seen Johael Haydar previously. They had both grown up in Alanorn, and the stories of the energetic prince and his small adventures alongside the strange orphan from Osternia had been common. Only, they had never before looked into his open eyes, and neither guard could articulate why the sickly green made them want to step back with their weapons raised. 

Across the castle, the king walked with a bowed head out of the healers' quarters, the cloying scents of their many shelved potions clinging to him and settling into the folds of his clothes. He did not notice them nor the breeze that welcomed him outside, carrying with it the salt of the water and trying desperately to pull him into its calming hold. On a sparse bed, the scout had finally collapsed into an uneasy sleep, the king doing what little he could. The trained healers were with the soldiers, leaving only shy novices whose hopeful glances he had tried to ignore.

The king ascended the steep stairs leading to the ramparts, each step difficult as if someone unknown had wrapped their hands around his cape and tried incessantly to pull him back. To make him fall. 

A plume of smoke rose from the east. Another mirrored it from the west, and the reports from Kahlheim and Darland should have arrived hours ago, leading the king to consider a dark outcome. The south was only still water until the horizon. To the north, Yubel had flown at his order, and he nurtured a fool's hope that no attacks would befall them. He had wanted to run his fingers over their tear-drop marks and up to the maze of their third eye, soothing any cracks of pain that he felt along the way. He wanted so many wonderfully brittle things, and, breathing in, the king forced himself to survey the lands below. His stare extended down to the bowl of the city’s residential district, and then it reached the castle’s main gates. They were closing, and he caught the final wisp of a white tail as a horse rounded a corner, disappearing from his sight and capturing his mind.

Forgetting all fatigue, he ran to the gate, and the guards startled at the fall of his boots. “Your highness! We thought you were still in the courtyard, with your advisors!”

“I dismissed them earlier,” he replied. In the absence of news from the free cities, he hadn’t needed their counsel, and the guards exchanged nervous looks with each other. “Was someone here for me?”

“Y-Yes, it was Jo-”

He was gone.

He flew through the castle, its corridors so vast and so hollow without lively groups of merchants and children tripping over each other, their laughter and shouts ringing out to challenge the songs of bards and half-arguments between guards. In his youth, he had run around each and every stiff corner of this place, often while being chased by said guards or a puffed-up noble who didn’t take his latest prank all that well -- rank be damned. Here, all was cold and grey, the paintings and sculptures wrapped up and hidden, as if they were being preserved for better days than this.

But it was alright.

It was  _ alright  _ because he had just bolted by a white horse with no rider, the reins hanging loose, and under the archway leading into the familiar courtyard -- a rectangle of stone bordered by columns that seemingly stretched up to graze the clouds. Shadows fell restlessly, segmenting the natural light that poured down and bleached the stones below. The king could not speak. He could barely think, and yet he continued to run, not stopping until he had pulled the pale figure of Johael into his arms and breathed in. Johael’s presence overwhelmed him. It laid bare all of the pain that had tortured him for so,  _ so  _ long, and his gloved hands ran erratically over Johael’s back and through his wayward hair, as if that touch would ground them both here. As if it would make them invulnerable to all else.

Their noses brushed, and the king moved back with unseeing eyes, his fingers slow to slip away from the folds of Johael’s tunic. Conflicting impulses tore at each other. He wanted to fold himself into the embrace, to immerse himself in the reassurance of Johael’s heartbeat and the perfect curve of his shoulders. But he also wanted to speak. He wanted to know.

Blinking quickly, he looked up, and Johael’s eyes met his own, only-

These eyes were brushed with the stark yellow of a dying plant’s leaves.

He shook his head, throwing away the ugly thought. There could be a thousand reasons for the change, the  _ minor  _ change that was so easily eclipsed by Johael being  _ here _ , and, just like that, the king felt himself smile -- wide and open, the kind that someone in despair could never give.

“I’ve had weeks to come up with a clever line for this moment, but… I guess it’s typical for me to slack on something like that, right?” the king said, sounding more like a young prince prone to having twigs in his hair and mud splattered over his boots than a king. He continued, waving his hands. “I can’t even say how many times I wanted to write to you, but… Maybe you’ve heard what happened to my dad, and...even talking about it still makes me… A-Anyways, I’m just… You’re  _ here _ . There’s a high chance I’m just hallucinating, but…”

“You’re not.”

The words had come from Johael, and yet the inflections were all wrong. His voice should have been lighter, and the king's face creased with worry.

"How long did it take you to get here? Are you tired?" Johael shook his head, his pupils small like bits of rot on a dead leaf. Again, the king forced himself to focus on Johael, his  _ friend _ . "We're low on reserves, including balms, potions. Things like that. But, I mean, there might be something in the healers' quarters that could help, if you're feeling...off."

At that, Johael grinned. It did not fit his face. "Oh, you shouldn't worry about me."

"It's impossible not to," the king admitted, laughing a little. "I mean, after everything that's happened… No one reported to me about you, so I...had a lot of time to think. And worry. I've gotten pretty good at it, actually."

The joke did nothing. It left no trace on Johael.

Somewhere, a bird cried out. The brittle echo did not survive for long, and, again, the king stared into the changed eyes of his dear friend, hoping for a flicker of recognition, of  _ anything _ . The hope cradled in his heart desperately fought for life, its roots protected so fiercely by this particular shade of Darkness. And yet, a horrible realization tried harder and harder to burst through. It wanted to turn his heart into a tomb, ripping all fertility from the earth. 

Johael's choppy blue bangs were pushed by the wind. His hands were loose by his sides, his long fingers scratched and calloused as any active swordsman's would be. 

"You've been fighting them," the king stated, and the Light's mad joy could not be contained. Throwing Johael's head back, it laughed, and the slim leaves of this hope were crushed. 

"No. I've," it began, showing Johael's teeth, "been fighting  _ you _ , the holder of the Gentle Darkness. I've been fighting you as I have for thousands of years, for ages forgotten and left to dust. Only…  _ This  _ is the moment of your downfall.”

"...Johael, what are you saying?" the king asked, although he couldn't hear himself. He didn't understand his own question because, wide-eyed, all he could do was stand and breath and  _ look  _ at Johael. Johael had a small scar on his right ear from a bandit leader ambushing him. Jurian knew the story. He and Yubel had listened to it while standing outside the castle walls and watching as the fireflies danced. 

The Light made Johael scowl in annoyance. "Ah, yes. Such a selfless form of Darkness.  _ So  _ selfless that it refuses to have a consciousness of its own, every trace of its being absorbed by such lesser creatures." Johael turned away, taking long steps to put distance between them, and the king reached out a shaking hand. "Although, I'll force you to become selfish. In this age, I'm going to alter your very nature until the wrath of the Gentle Darkness is indistinguishable from the devastation of my Light. I know you don't understand," Johael rasped out, pivoting on his heel. "I'm only revealing this to heighten your fear. It’s useful if you’re afraid of me, just as it’s useful if you love my host.”

"I'm…" Jurian pulled his hand back, the bones of it so heavy. "It's okay, Johael. You're just under a spell, like the others, and…" He swallowed thickly. "I'm going to save you."

Again, the alien consciousness forced Johael's face into a grin, and then it lowered his right hand, making it tighten around the grip and pull out the white blade. Rivulets of light adorned it. The sheen of the metal was like a twisted branch of lightning, and the king's jaw clenched, blood pounding in his head. This reality had to stop. 

He drew his sword, the twin in pure black. 

But he couldn't move. This had happened so many times before -- himself and Johael on opposite sides of this courtyard, weapons in hand. Never before had there been a tension behind it, and the king could not raise his arm. The bones in it begged for him to fall to the floor, so heavy was this new grief. 

He could have dropped the longsword, letting it clatter down.

Then an idea came to him so quickly that he could barely process it before daring a glance at the archway, and there was a flicker of his peripheral vision, a movement from Johael. The pale longsword was held loosely in one hand. 

"You  _ could  _ call for the guards and make this an uneven fight, although... Should you  _ really _ risk it? I could have a rather sudden and, ah,  _ fatal  _ accident with this body, and wouldn't that just be terrible?" The king clenched his jaw. He tried to steady himself, but the blade still shook. The Light continued. "I just want a fight, that's all. Your reward is an obvious one -- the return of my wonderful vessel," it said, splaying a free hand over Johael's sternum. 

“And you want a chance at killing me, don’t you?” the king spat back, which was wrong. Johael’s grin climbed higher, and his stance fell into something so acutely familiar, so  _ Johael _ , that the king was stunned by it, his next words dying in his mouth. The grip rattled in his hand.

“Well…  _ Perhaps _ … Regardless, I wouldn’t recommend trying to delay this either. Again, my, uh,  _ control  _ might slip,” it warned, immensely pleased by every quake and shudder. Yes, this person was beginning to suffer, the wound forming so exquisitely, and it would deepen as the duel went on. It would extend down to the king’s very heart.

The ruination of the Gentle Darkness had begun.

With the frantic beats of their wings sounding out, the small birds perched near the courtyard quickly took flight, and all was still except for the quivering figure of the king. He found his resolve so suddenly that to see the change in him would have horrified any onlooker -- a terrible calm freezing his expression, his eyes as unreadable and as glassy as those of a corpse. With both hands, he leveled the dark longsword at his opponent.

To free Johael, he would endure anything.

Even this.

He swung first, sprinting forward and destroying the distance between them, and their longswords connected with a scream of metal, their gazes locking between the deadly cross. The sickly yellow burned around Johael’s small pupils, trying to consume more shreds of the black, and the king went for a kick, trying to upset his opponent’s balance and take a quick victory. But the Light reacted in time, making Johael whirl away with one hand extended for balance, and the king pursued him. He chased, forcing another clash and forcing his body to become numb, to obey him like a machine.

Again.

_ Again _ he threw out a strike that Johael deflected before throwing out an attack of his own, the swing going wide and letting the king slip back into an offensive stance. Again their swords connected, Johael driving against him with an inhuman force, the Light pushing every fiber of his body beyond its very limits. In return, the king continued to numb himself. He continued to attack, parrying Johael before -- aiming to catch his opponent off guard -- lowering his longsword and instead driving his shoulder hard against Johael’s chest. It should have knocked him down.

It didn’t.

On agile feet, Johael circled away from him, drifting out of his reach with that unnatural grin angling higher and higher.

“So, you think this level of self-control will be enough? You  _ really  _ think that you can overcome  _ me _ ?” A high-pitched sound, more like the whine of a feral animal than a human laugh. “Envoy of darkness… I will break you down. In a single strike, I will make you shatter.”

“It doesn’t matter what you say,” the king replied, his expression unchanged. He was still a part of this joyless duel.

Johael was not going to stay like this, not when the will inside of the king had become unbreakable, faultless. He should have felt like a hero, the person his childhood self had always wanted to be -- the swordsman who saves others, taking down powerful villains with his own skill. Instead, there was nothing. The void had grown inside him. 

So far away -- with panicked villagers cowering behind their wings while they drove their claws into a wooden shield and forced an attacker down into the mud -- Yubel’s  _ need  _ to return began to ache in a new way, as if someone was forcing a knife between their ribs. The next attacker was thrown back with merciless force. 

Within the castle, the king approached his opponent, this manifestation of the Light hiding beneath his friend’s skin. His steps echoed.

He crossed the distance, sprinting fast and swinging low, but it was Johael’s sword that drew blood instead, sliding across the king’s right bicep and slipping expertly through the thick material of his tunic. Red dotted the white stone below, the circles smearing when the king pursued and swung again. Just a glancing blow would be enough to break Johael’s defense. 

Instead, there was another flutter-strike of the white sword, as fast as the flicker of a butterfly’s wings, and a shallow curve in red spread over the king’s thigh. It did not stagger him, and taking the better angle, he forced Johael back. Their swords remained locked.

Like that, their combat continued, dread setting in like frost. The king tried to ignore it, to brush it off for the sake of his precious friend. They had written such hopeful letters to each other, and this could not be their final duel, not in the world as he understood it. Sliding back on his heels, he pivoted and met Johael's next swing in the middle of its arc, freezing it and making the metal sing. 

Like this, he did not dare to imagine Johael's smiling face, his  _ real  _ face. Genuine joy would make his irises like elm leaves in spring. There were years for them to spend together still, Johael gaining new stories as he journeyed as a knight and meeting Jurian again and again. Above all else, the king believed that they were  _ meant  _ to grow together, like young roots that curved around each other in a blissful dance.

Only, this reality had been warped beyond repair. Such precious things could now die. Such delicate things could be ripped apart. 

It happened too quickly. No counter could have been made, not when the eagerly waiting Light had finally seen its chance. 

Their swords had been locked, each duelist pressing for an advantage, and the king had kept his restraint, every fiber of his being obedient. That restraint did not fail him when Johael’s arms suddenly swung the sword back and the king found himself weaving between and diving under a series of mad, brutal strikes, each one aiming for his throat with a duelist’s precision. It did not fail him when he countered the blade, executing each parry with absolute control.

Parry, parry. Run back, and then strike, and then-

The metal of his longsword had fused with Johael’s chest, a circle of red framing the point of impossible contact, like the bloom of a rose at the end of a dark stem. The petals unfurled, more red sullying the pristine white, and the warped satisfaction of the Light could not be contained, Johael’s ribs quaking with the cackles that spilled out, more and more following each new drop of blood. The red stained the king’s vision. 

No, his restraint had not failed him, but this had never been a macabre dance of two blades, not when the Light had dove towards that sword. The body of Johael had been impaled on the king’s own blade. The Light’s consciousness would be scattered amongst the stars and weakened,  _ altered _ , by the loss of such a faultless, prismatic vessel, and yet they still contorted Johael’s pale face into a demon’s grin. They could see the real wound. Unceasingly would it bleed for centuries, taking with it more and more of the Gentle Darkness and leaving behind only the tomb, only the unfeeling and unending cold of a mad king’s grief.

Destruction would overcome all else, for it now lived within both the purified light and its most hated darkness.

“Enjoy this small victory, poisoned as it may be” it rasped with another’s strained voice, and then the change began, the very muscles and sinews of Johael’s body no longer safe to hide inside. Defeat drove it out into the open, and its rays dispersed, all of its thoughts breaking instantaneously.

The tension keeping Johael upright snapped, and he sagged against the sword, blinking faster and faster. Each pass of his eyelids returned more shards of that spring green until the king could only cry so terribly that it forced Johael to  _ focus _ through the fog of shock and pain and distant, distant fear. The fear passed like the shadow of a bird flying overhead, and instead a concern settled into place, spurned on by the tears he could see so clearly. 

For so long, he had lived under the moonlight of Jurian’s boyish love, and while there were so many things he would never understand, even now could he cast off the heavy chains of despair. He dropped his sword, his sluggish hands rising up to grip the king’s shoulders.

The touch startled Jurian, and his friend only smiled back at him -- Johael’s smile, which reached his eyes.

His clear, green eyes.

“I… I didn’t… I need  _ help _ ,” the king yelled out without looking away, panic ripping through him. “I need… I need… Johael, you’re not…” 

“This...wasn’t how our next duel was supposed to go,” Johael said as steadily as he could, and he shook his head, his soft hair shifting like a wave. “Hey, Jurian, t-tell me that you’ll give me another try at this in our next life, okay? Since… Well. I’m going to hate leaving without saying goodbye to Yubel, not to mention R-Ruby and… Apologize for me, will you?” A wince, and then his knees went, Jurian fumbling with the hilt as he tried to make the unsteady motion easier. Kneeling together in the courtyard, they both listened to the raw, wet sound of Johael’s next gasp.

“This… This is all my fault.”

“Jurian, I… I don’t know what happened, but there’s no way you... I-It’s…” Johael broke off, and the king whimpered as more tears fell, unimpeded. “L-Like I said, this c-can’t be the end for us, so believe in me, alright?”

“I’m so sorry. I’m… I’m so sorry.” Tightening his hold, he pressed his forehead to Johael’s, and the little pleased hum from Johael contrasted with the chill of his skin. Shifting down, the king then kissed his cheekbone. For an eternity, he would have waited there -- caught in the purgatory between Johael’s life and death, because the future beyond that death was a chasm, a maw, and its darkness writhed in monstrous ways.

He would have held Johael like that forever, as one half of a statue posed in the very center of this courtyard and outlasting all the structures around it. Instead, the wheel of fate continued on. Johael’s fingers became limp. His arms lost their strength.

“Don’t,” the king pleaded, but no answer came. 

\---

Under the whorl of a grey sky, the kingdom of Alanorn waited on the precipice of a new age, and those few souls still within the castle swore that -- as the afternoon sun weakly fought against the thickening clouds -- never before had there been a silence so chilling as the one within those stone walls. In an unsaid unison, they all felt this with the certainty of a truth. They wondered at their existence within this otherworldly place, and they waited with fear creeping up their backs, rounding the knobs of their spines.

By the main gates, the silence broke with the familiar fall of the king’s steps, as the guards knew his gait well. They had expected the thunk-thunk-thunk of another set of boots to accompany it, and, confused, the two guards turned around. But neither guard said anything. The command was given as a nod from their ruler. They remained rooted to the ground as their hands rotated the mechanical devices controlling the gates’ many locks and barricades. They did not breathe as the defenses parted and their leader walked out with long strides, Johael motionless and cradled tightly against his chest. As if he were simply asleep, Johael’s face belied no tension, no worry, and bordered by lashes still weighted with tears, the king’s eyes were those of someone looking directly into a searing light -- his pupils small, his warm brown irises distorted into discs of pure yellow. 

In brushstrokes of dark green and blue, the clearing on the outskirts of the king’s forest had not changed despite the chaos waging around it. Indeed, this magical place had already begun to drift away, as the fields of fairies do when humanity’s nature becomes too twisted for them to bear, and yet it remained long enough for the king to walk through the knee-high grass towards the center of the clearing, the mighty trees bordering it carrying hushed creatures on their gnarled branches and behind their cascading leaves. As he strode forward, the king carried with him the scent of blood, and he knelt down to gently place the body of his friend here, under a canopy rippling with magic and under the shadows of thousands of dancing leaves. Rising again, he stepped back. 

From the shadows, a panther approached on quiet paws, her fur a soft rose quartz, and she stopped by Johael’s side, curling closer to him as if to pass the warmth of her own body into his. The king had removed his longsword, sheathed it. The panther covered the bloom of red marring Johael’s chest with her paws, settling her chin on top of them next.

More mystical beasts followed, united by the thread of this grief. A tiger with a horn-like blade rising from its forehead. A pegasus with wings as white as untouched snow. A tortoise that crept through the tall grass, the dome of its shell a rare teal blue. A towering creature in grey with long tusks and gentle steps. The eagle from before, brown feathers rippling copper in the fading light. 

Last was Ruby. The small feline with forked ears in blue and sparkling red eyes. She darted through the grass, emboldened by the magic of destiny, and she warbled when her paws brushed Johael’s unfeeling hands. Her ears drooped. She warbled again, and the king turned away, taking with him a sword that, even sheathed, was dripping in eager shadows.

The clearing drifted away from this land and out of memory, taking with it the animal souls who had loved this human so dearly. In whispers, sorcerers would later tell of rare visions taken through the rapid currents of time -- a clearing in eternal greens and blues, a pale boy in the very center and surrounded by mystical beasts who had crystallized in all colours, their eyes all closed in what seemed like a restless sleep. To some, the shape of this gathering seemed to be that of a dragon, a mythical beast known to keep what it loved and, above all else, protect it until the very end.

\---

Four days passed before Yubel landed inside Alanorn castle, their scales streaked with ash and dirt and their wings folding in with a ‘crack’. The villagers and injured soldiers were secure inside the walls. All were terrified from days under pursuit but free from the spell. Yubel had let swords and axes clip their hardened scales as they fought with a dragon’s ire and a knight’s devotion, and yet now those souls could have been continents away, their focus so strong that it was driving a wedge into their skull. As if it would really crack open from their need to be here, to see  _ him _ .

They threw open the doors to the throne room and strode in, heedless of any guards waiting in the gloom. They cared nothing for any advisors or nobles or pathetic worms who would cling to their love, hoping to take some of his honour for themselves, and their glare cut through the stone of the columns, searching and searching for the king. His scent was here, as was the metallic cut of dried blood. Their nostrils flared, their exposed fangs clenching together harder, and they stalked forward on sharp claws. 

Someone in armor moved, and their presence destroyed all else, Yubel stepping back before they could stop the reaction. The floor beneath them fell out. Every piece of cut stone vanished alongside the artifacts and weapons of the castle, all things crumbling until they were alone with this figure in a black expanse. His plate armor was thick, the edges tapered with bronze details. A scarlet cape poured from his shoulders. The faceplate for his helmet was off, the intricate grey mask held in one rigid hand, and although Yubel did not know his eyes, they knew every angle of his face.

\---

Within the month, the castle was surrounded on all sides. Cracked boards from their ships washed ashore, heralding the approach of a strange fleet with spiked prows and sails in the colours of an unknown nation, evidently eager to feast upon the carrion of a kingdom seemingly in ruins. From the east, the warped armies from Kahlheim and Darland advanced, disorganized but sudden nonetheless. Smoke drifted in from the north, and open fires razed the west.

This was the grand arena constructed by the Light, designed to further the crucial flaw now living within the Gentle Darkness.

The king stood on the ramparts, his cape pulsing with the erratic wind, and Yubel was at his side, where they had forever sworn to be. With clipped words, he had told them about the Light, and as the details had emerged, Yubel had understood that never again would he look like the kingdom's dear prince -- all dimples and freckles and scratched knees, carrying a perpetual summer within himself. 

His coldness bled into them. The frost settled in tangled patterns underneath their armor.

"Our stores wouldn't last much longer," Yubel reported, and the masked king did not respond. "We cannot survive a siege for more than ten days."

"There won't be a siege."

For a moment, Yubel only stood there, the components of their throat working in silence. The distant fires were like scabs against the grey earth. "The invaders will gather here, and to free as many of them from this spell as possible, we'll need to-"

"We won't," said the king.

The frost crept in further, and Yubel blinked down at the weathered stones. Their mind had always been quick. 

They understood.

The new age drove on, and what the king lacked in numbers, he made up for in tactical precision. It was a precision that demanded much of his subjects, the huddled few who began to shrink at the rasp of his voice, and Yubel so often found themselves perched on the highest tower, unfeeling of the breeze that whipped at their unwashed hair and toyed with the brambles and thorns clinging to their wings. Slowly the vivid colours of bygone days faded. They mourned their friend who had been taken by the Light, his potential a thing of such beauty. They mourned many losses in silence.

None of the enemy ships landed. Their burnt husks sank beneath the waves. 

The king did more than just defend the castle of his birthright. As the weather chilled enough to put the ice in Yubel's veins at ease, he advanced on Kahlheim and Darland, securing their walls before marching west with his soldiers, all of whom knew better than to complain of the cold or the snow. The king punished insubordination without remorse.

The brutal age continued, a chariot driven hard by a new figure in black armor. He did force the Light back to the cosmos, but the cost was severe enough that none of these events would pass into history or legend or myth. No storytellers dared to pass such nightmares down through generations, and the ruler's living subjects eventually spoke of him under a different title, one that did not remind them of paradisaical summers and the colours they contained. 

The Supreme King. 

He ruled over a wasteland.

\---


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter sort of...moves from the past life to the end of season 3 and then to some post-series stuff, so I apologize if it’s a bit hard to follow. Thanks for sticking with me so far. ...The previous chapter was...a lot.
> 
> The next chapter should be the epilogue with a lot of post-series interactions. I'll try to get it up as soon as I can, but I am currently a bit stuck!

\---

It is unknown how the reign of the Supreme King ended.

Such days are lost to human knowledge, like runes carved on a stone that, over centuries of exposure to the elements, have vanished into the grey. In a similar manner, it is unknown how Yubel's self came to pass the ultimate threshold, their memories like threads that would not fray as those of other beings did. Even in death did they continue to love him, transcending notions of a finite existence or, at the very least, an existence confined to only one seamless stretch of linear time. 

In a dream, an artist saw their body: a network of purples and coppers and blacks all leading to their burning stare in green and orange and the ever-open red of their third eye. Overcome by this vision of contrast, draconic strength and human beauty, the artist stumbled out of bed and reached for his easel, working in quick strokes to capture their outline before it faded from his drowsy mind. The picture became a totem, stirring something within the world of the spirits. 

The artist showed his work to the head of a gaming company, and then he gave the picture a name -- Yubel.

Again tethered to this world, Yubel's soul was dredged up from the chasm of eternity, a fog-like sleep gradually lifting from their mind. If they had not met the boy, then perhaps they never would have regained consciousness at all, delegated to a mere wisp of a spirit without purpose or voice. But they did meet him. A young Yuki Judai ripped a card pack open and spilled the contents over his star-patterned bedsheets, his small hands quickly sorting through his new treasures. Their portraits sparkled like gems, although one overwhelmed all others -- capturing his imagination, distant stars chiming out. 

Yubel, now his favorite card, churned with a new life, and he smiled softly as he cradled their card close, letting it rest over his heart.

\---

Although-

\---

Although even those warm days would find their end.

Yubel was not whole, not while time was needed for their blurred memories to become clear again. The truth remained under mud-filled water, phantom-like and obscured. But even though Yubel could not find the words to speak, they _knew_ he had been in danger before. That pain could not be tolerated again. 

When Judai pouted after a sudden loss, swinging his socked feet and rocking the dining table slightly, Yubel did not think. They were a foaming, whirling river, and they struck out at his opponent.

The opposing chair fell back against the floor with a deafening 'thud'. 

\---

Rumors quickly spread of the boy with the monstrous gift.

For many nights, he lay awake with Yubel's card by his cheek, holding as still as he could and focusing hard on the subtle ebbs and flow of energy from the material. Their connection was largely wordless, sometimes the whisper of his name reaching across their disparate planes of existence and stirring something within his earnest heart. For Yubel to lash out meant that they were in pain. They were _afraid_.

In the cocoon of his room, he could feel that emotion ease, as if these layers of blankets and pillows could keep any intergalactic villain or sworn enemy out, forever. Stuck-on plastic stars glowed dimly from the ceiling. The nightlight in orange and yellow gleamed like a gas giant against an unexplored stretch of the cosmos. Stuffed animals of all sorts remained perched on the end of the bed -- a bird, a dolphin, a panther. And yet, that fear would return in the morning, spiking and rattling when he had to leave for school. He did not want Yubel to be hurt, and yet his small hands could only make a little fortress like this, their allies full of stuffing and not able to talk back unless he did the voices himself. 

Yubel needed help. That became certain to him while the TV in the living room rambled on, bits of a variety program leaking through the thin walls. Occasionally a glass clicked harshly against the side table. When his parents said that they loved each other, those words rattled against conversations from before, ones that he probably was never meant to have listened to. The walls really were thin, often shattering the fantasy of this cocoon he had created with his animal friends. 

To him, love seemed more like...Yubel. Their constant presence. The shifts in their consciousness that, to him, seemed more and more like a heartbeat. For their sake, he made a request to a powerful man, and he watched the satellites be launched from his living room, the reporters on the TV hurrying through technical details that were just noise to him. His parents mumbled in the background, his father leaving eventually and his mother drifting into the kitchen. She turned on the radio, the upbeat song competing with the voices, and Judai stared into the images on the screen until someone turned it off. 

A small hope was inside him, its fragile roots digging down and trying to make it grow bigger, to grow into something more.

\---

The Yuki Judai who first stepped onto Academy Island did not remember the lines and colours of Yubel's portrait, nor did he recognize the strange emptiness beneath his ribs. An ache should have been there, the terrible, gnawing pain of guilt.

An experimental procedure had burned holes in his memories. The pain's connection to him was severed, and so all that lingered within him was the sense of having been a sickly child, since why else would he have spent so much time in what looked like an MRI machine? It explained his parents' troubled silences. It explained why he often felt that he had been so, _so_ very lonely, despite the toys crowding his room and his cards that seemed to have brightened in the dark, not unlike those plastic stars. Or fireflies. 

The pain had flowed down to him from Yubel, who -- trapped inside the capsule with the full malice of the Light boring through them -- could never be fully converted by it, not when their fused soul only resonated with Darkness. Instead, the Light twisted them. It reshaped their captive mind, cutting off insignificant memories and feeding those that could become useful later on: those of heartbreak, of a love defined by ruin and pain. To them, the green-eyed boy from the small village was gone. His face left them, just as their own left Judai.

In the vastness of space, the dragon-knight became ravenous and cruel, the void around them lashed at by whips of energy and cursed at with soundless screams. With frenzied nebulas swirling around them, they remembered a burning gaze in gold and shuddered in exquisite pain, exquisite because, yes, truly this could only be love. The pinnacle of all love. An icy peak that cut their hands into ribbons and stole their breath with its unrivaled beauty.

Yes, this isolation must have been a gesture of his love, and, as a grinning demon suspended over a wealth of stars, they swore to return that love a thousand times and then a thousand times more, strengthening the declaration with each new elicited gasp of pain. 

Hurriedly running towards the examination center, Yuki Judai had no concept of how badly they wanted to hurt him. For this goal, they would entrance and manipulate and kill with a siren's song, their victims discarded like broken pieces from a board game that could be so easily replaced. 

Yes, they were going to hurt him. 

And they did. 

\---

Under a cerulean sky with a salt-laced breeze rushing over them both, Yuki Judai reached out and took Johan Andersen's hand. The excitement from their earlier duel still buzzed under his skin, but it was suddenly diluted by something else, a longing that made him stare into those green eyes and _wonder_. He recognized the grasp of Johan's hand, and yet he also didn't recognize it at all. Time flowed strangely. Its patterns repeated, doubling back and then multiplying. It was like someone marking a paper with ink and then folding it repeatedly until the new smudges were incomprehensible. Eventually, even the original mark became badly distorted and changed.

The Light had searched for this boy -- its prism remade, the facets of it perfected once again -- with frantic bursts of madness and rains of its cosmic energy. But Johan had always been a traveller: prone to taking random trains with only a backpack and his deck for company, skipping lessons to chase after the rumors of card thieves and spirit hunters, and entering tournaments under aliases just for the fun of it, since the spotlight that followed a winning reputation had never _really_ felt right. Shy, he stumbled when asked for his name by strangers. Accidentally had he slipped away from that greedy hand, darting through its fingers before they could close, and once the Crystal Beasts had reunited with their true master, their luster protected him even further from detection.

Wary of the latent power within the carrier of the Gentle Darkness, the Light had struck out without its ideal vessel and with a mind frenzied by its own isolation in the void of space. Like Johan, Saiou had known persecution due to a rare gift and sought, above all else, for others to become more understanding, more empathetic. Those were desires that the evil had lived within before, in another time.

Johan's youth had, despite the spirits intrinsically drawn to him again and again, also been marked by loneliness.

Regardless, the Light of Destruction had been defeated inside that imperfect vessel. For that moment. A brief blink of a pause in the vast ocean of eternity.

Although, that moment was still long enough for Johan to take Judai's hand while they stood together on the roof of Duel Academia's main building, the landscape splayed out underneath them and curving in its many greens and blues. 

Deja vu, was how Judai would describe the feeling.

It flashed over Johan as well, and his smile then shone even brighter.

\---

Under the scorched sky of another dimension, Judai did fall into a distorted mirror -- gold erupting in his irises and overtaking them, his mind sinking alongside the warm brown flecked with a summer sunset's red. But that was not his end, not when his friends had fought for his sake. Their voices had reached him within that maze of glass, and after he had escaped, he had suffered from a persistent, clawing fear.

Beyond that was his strength.

He grasped for it, and, eventually, he seized it.

It bent even the will of the Supreme King to his service, and when he did face Yubel again, the rippling gold was his own. It was a sign of his unbreakable heart, its walls existing only to protect the brittle things inside. At the end of that fateful duel, it contained hope again, and this time, the seedling grew and grew. Eventually, it blossomed into something beautiful and free of all thorns, and after playing Super Polymerization and opening his very soul, he showed all of this to Yubel. They understood him in an instant, and the two individuals became one.

\---

Yuki Judai’s journey was one that had left scars of many kinds, and, with a scribbled-on farewell paper from his classmates in his bag and a rather chubby cat yowling on his shoulder, he set off with the simple goal of traveling _out_ into the world. So many of its contours were still unknown, many countries defined just by things he’d seen on TV as a kid or overheard from others with more experience. Chronos-sensei had always talked about Italy, for example.

And so he went to Italy. 

When one tourist booth in Marche had a discounted phrase book in German, he took that as a cue to make his way around Lake Constance before heading north. Winning a random instant-knock-out tournament resulted in a ticket to another tournament held in Brazil, which went perfectly with his love of all things ‘free’ or ‘discounted’, and he added a new phrase book to his collection. A hotel room had even been included with the package, the view outside gleaming with a beach so pale that it seemed _silver_ against the teal-blue shallows. Tournaments were good, obviously, but they did lull him into a routine that seemed too tight, and, unthinking, he found himself spending more time hiking up unknown trails, sleeping deep in groves of tilting trees, and just...existing. 

Existing like _this_ , everything around him brimming with possibility and newness and life. 

Daitokuji-sensei sometimes compared him to a young alchemist on a prospecting mission for new mineral deposits and rare materials, which always made Yubel snort in amusement and Judai flash a smile, small but still honest. His teacher was sort of right, but a young alchemist like that would _probably_ have a clearer goal in mind than he did. 

Memories that were not his own bloomed in his dreams, their colours hyper-bright and sticking to the insides of his eyelids when he would wake up. He would stay frozen in place until that _flood_ of another’s emotions slipped away. Yubel knew that he struggled to speak about them, the words _not enough_.

Just like how he couldn’t speak about his nightmares of Johan sinking into the darkness inside another dimension and being consumed by it, completely. Never to return. Never, never, never.

After ‘stumbling across’ his sixth set of plane tickets (this time from having a productive talk with some mischievous duel spirits intent on annoying a rather loud-mouthed-but-actually-nice-underneath-all-the-boasting travel agent), taking a ten-hour long flight, and then heading _away_ from the congested international airport for days and days, Judai found himself buried in the quiet of an unknown valley. He was staring up at the navy-black canvas of the night sky, the stars out and glittering next to the lights from planes and satellites. The quiet became a weight, comforting like a winter coat done up to his chin with a scarf knotted over the clasp. Or like when Yubel would cross their hands over his chest, phasing their wrists until they tangibly rested on his shoulders. 

He clicked his phone on. 

No service. 

_‘Hm. It’s now exactly 90 days until the party,’_ Yubel observed, their form a flicker of purple-black at his left. 

“The party?”

_‘Your one-year graduation party. I believe you’ve had three separate calls about it, specifically to confirm your attendance.’_

“...I’m sort of waiting for Sho to teleport behind me and then start yelling.”

A chuckle, their full lips turning. _‘Ah, waiting for your friend to develop extrasensory abilities is certainly a unique strategy.’_

“‘Unique’, huh? Sounds like you want to call it, say, ‘inefficient,’” he said, arching an eyebrow, and Yubel rolled their eyes.

 _‘My dear, I have no interest in pushing you towards an outcome that you don’t want, but I would be somewhat..._ remiss _if I failed to address something that’s clearly weighing on your mind.’_

“Yeah, it’s part of my growing collection. Seems like I’ve been carrying around more than just phrasebooks, some travel supplies, and one Pharaoh the cat,” Judai answered, perfectly aware that the thin layer of humor was a useless shield. Yubel could feel the shiver that wracked him, and they followed when he started down the shallow incline, moving his legs for something to do. 

Patches of wild grass were broken up by spreads of exposed dirt, flat rocks, and brambles with dark thorns. He breathed it all in, feeling utterly rootless and yet still so, _so_ heavy. Each step forward only made the memories surge, the past trying its damn best to drag him in. 

“There...are a lot of sayings about how time makes things easier to deal with, but I’m starting to think that doesn’t apply to everyone, including...me,” he admitted, shrugging and then looking away from Yubel’s slight frown. There was no judgement behind it. Under his skin were ripples of their concern, lacing their way deeper into his chest with streaks of warmth. “Seems like it’s just getting easier for me to find things to worry about, like I’m creating new combinations out of all these pieces. Plus, the dreams are...giving me booster packs with even _more_ pieces, not that I’m interested in growing my collection right now.”

_‘Are you wanting to discuss those dreams?’_

“Nope,” he said, because it was the truth. Finding a convenient stretch of flat-ish earth, he laid down and threw his limbs out, the starlight pouring down in full. “I’m not ready at all, but, hey, sure. Let’s try it anyways.”

He looked to his left, watching as Yubel gently folded their legs under themselves and placed their hands over their thighs, one wrapped in more muscle than the other. ‘Looking at Yubel’ could probably be called a hobby of his, given that he caught himself doing it, well, _constantly_. Their array of spikes led into smooth curves. The sharp point of their chin was below the full shape of their bottom lip. One of their feet was more of a talon, each toe ending with a jagged nail in gold, while the other was like a thin, tapered boot in black. 

Their tangible form was warm, a heat radiating out from beneath their interlocking scales. Whenever they took his hand, the gentle action made him want to bow his head, press it against their chest, and just stay cloaked in their embrace, everything else _miles_ away and numbed by the lulling rhythm of their steady breaths. 

“When we dueled in that other dimension, you showed me some scenes from our past,” he began, absently picking at the grass. “Since then, I’ve been seeing fragments of my past life every once in a while. ...Well, it’s more than just seeing. ‘Feeling’, I guess.” Glancing over, he saw that Yubel was watching him, their eyes flickering with so many oranges and greens. “I know that your memories of that time are difficult to sort through, thanks to our ‘friend’ the Light of Destruction, but maybe we can combine what we have to figure out the real story.”

 _‘That will be challenging,’_ they replied, tilting their head to the side. 

“I’ve seen more of myself in the castle, the ‘past me’.”

_‘Jurian.’_

“...Yeah. That name is kind of similar, isn’t it? Anyways...,” he drawled, and the words were messy and colliding and just _awkward_. Yubel would get it anyways, picking through the meaningless syllables for those that mattered. “There’s a lot of stuff about us growing up together. Sword fights, sparring, horse riding. Most of the time, it’s like I’m seeing a fantasy movie with a couple of, err, ‘uncanny’ lead characters.”

 _‘But you don’t enjoy these dreams,’_ they observed, unflinching in their stare, and Judai wanted to shrug, to laugh nervously before switching the subject, easy as flipping a card over and hiding the unwanted image splayed on the front. Then again, easy actions weren’t always the right ones.

“They don’t help me figure any of this out. I have the scraps of a story, like someone ripped up a comic book and then gave me a random 20% of the contents. I know that Jurian was a prince who fell for you and that you changed yourself to support him. He swore to give all of his love to you, just like I have.”

At that, Yubel blinked at him, and then they smirked, something about it teasing. Their voice rumbled, low. _‘You’re not the only one to make such vows, and I would gladly renew them.’_

He coughed slightly, taking a sudden interest in a nearby rock. “Anyways, from there is when things get even more unclear. Too many panels are missing. I’ve seen us at the castle together, the land around it all burnt to nothing. Jurian is in armor, and I can’t feel him anymore. He’s numb to it all. Frozen to the core.”

 _‘Jurian unleashed what you would call the Supreme King. He carved a place for such a force within the Gentle Darkness, and he passed on its potential to you,’_ Yubel stated, their voice still rasping with a deeper tone, and he nodded. Those static panels in the greys and blacks of a scorched and lifeless forest were difficult to blink away, the colours melding with those of the other dimension as if to _prove_ that, yes, really this was all part of the same fucked-up cycle. Judai snorted.

“I’ll have to thank him if there’s ever some kind of dramatic inter-dimensional time-travel event. All things considered, it’s possible, maybe even likely considering the kinds of adventures we have,” he said, and Yubel just arched an eyebrow ridge at him, their fondness unfurling inside his chest. “Still, that’s not all I see.”

_‘Oh?’_

“I think Jurian had a friend, someone who meant the world to him. You liked that person too. ...I mean, I don’t exactly have proof of that, but it...feels right.”

 _‘It’s entirely possible. The disconnected nature of my own memories could have been done to purposefully conceal someone,’_ Yubel mused, tapping a long finger against their chin. _‘Do you believe that this friend played a role in Jurian’s transformation?’_

Judai laughed.

Yubel was always right. 

“Yeah, I do. I think his friend was the catalyst for it. Before he put on that armor, he was in such pain that…I can’t process it.” His voice shook. Inhaling sharply, he continued on, unfeeling of the night’s cold. “I can relate to a lot of what he went through. I mean, even in my first year at school, I saw some pretty messed-up things. For example, the Dark Duelist? Chances are that he _wasn’t_ just acting at the end of that duel. The shadows took him.”

_‘Purposefully angering any form of darkness can have serious consequences.’_

“I also don’t think that Satou-sensei is coming back anytime soon, like...a lot of other people. So, when I saw Jurian kill someone in the throne room and he couldn’t acknowledge it, I...got it. There are so many moments where he would turn his brain off, and every time, I got it right away. I _knew_ why he was doing that.”

_‘Judai…’_

He clenched his teeth. He kept going. “What happened to him was so… It’s so sad. It just _ends_ like that.”

 _‘While you and your past self are connected as holders of the Gentle Darkness, you_ are _also_ _fundamentally different from each other. It may seem like you’re part of an unshakable destiny, one that follows the horrors of Jurian’s downfall, but you’ve proven your own strength, your own identity, and the power of the friends you hold so dearly. Such things can break the shackles of the past.’_ Softly, Yubel’s tangible hand covered his own, the warmth pulsing down through his skin. Their palm felt smooth despite the many seams, like interlocking pieces of welded metal, and, again, he wanted to just fall into them, to let their bond overwhelm all that he was. 

Growing up, as it turned out, got even more complicated once past lives were involved. Plus, hard as he tried, running away didn’t seem to help at all, which sucked. A lot.

“I’m just…” He made a gesture with his free hand, Yubel blinking at him with the real light and its real shadows tracing the angles of their face. Moonlight softened the partitions between purple and black, between the armored brambles coated with glossy scales and the curves shown with bare skin. “I keep taking pieces from _those_ dreams and putting them over my own memories. Like, what Jurian felt for his friend, it’s a lot like what happened when Johan didn’t come back, which led to...so many other things.”

 _‘I see.’_ They rubbed a circle over his thumb. _‘Perhaps I’m not the only one you should have this discussion with.’_

“...Perhaps.”

He _knew_ the look that would be on Yubel’s face: one eyebrow ridge raised higher than the other, something condescending about the exact tilt of their smirk. _‘Yes. Perhaps.’_ They then changed the subject, their voice soothing, lilting. _‘While I’m sure that carrying out imagined conversations between yourself and one Johan Andersen is entertaining in its own way, such simulations lack the substance of an actual discussion, similar to how no amount of preparation can substitute for the intensity of a real duel.’_

“...Hey, remind me never to argue with you.”

_‘Noted.’_

“I’m also ending my turn, to bring back the cardgame talk,” he said, squeezing Yubel’s fingers once and then laughing at their surprised blink. “If you want to rant about Jurian’s fashion sense or, you know, anything more serious than that, go right ahead. My field is wide open.”

_‘Hm. I doubt that I’ll employ as much ‘cardgame talk’ as you, my dear.’_

“Well, I’ll try not to take that personally,” he said, throwing on a pout, and Yubel poked lightly at his side. Drawing their claw back, their gaze became distant, the orange and green glassy with their many flickering lights stilled. 

_‘The Light of Destruction poisoned those memories for so long. The cruelty of the Supreme King became an extension of his love, although, much like you, I only have suggestions of what happened after the land burned. I understand that I did suffer, often choosing silence.’_

He reached for them, taking those fingers with his own, and he did not look away. “I’m sorry you went through that.”

With a narrow smile, Yubel continued. _‘Of course, my concept of ‘memories’ is somewhat unique, due to the Light’s interference. Yes, the emotions there are my own, but my perception of myself has greatly changed since then.’_

“Still, it’s not easy to deal with.”

_‘Hm… I’ll say that my focus is more on the present than the past, but, of course, you are right. Those memories have shown me a great sorrow.’_

His throat went tight, followed by a new pressure to Yubel’s touch. He shut his eyes for a beat. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

“The depth of it can be overwhelming. I see no reason not to admit that,” they said, speaking against the stillness of the continuing night, and their grip tightened, their nails flat over his skin like new scales designed to keep him safe, to cover him. “My dear,” they whispered, leaning closer, “this sorrow falls on us differently, and when it weighs heavily on you, then let me bear some of it as well. Your half of our soul is indeed troubled, but it can never be lonely.”

“The same goes for you, Yubel. Yeah, I might be a wreck sometimes or distracted by all of this, but I’m yours.” Yubel’s pupils widened, their expression almost shy as their fingers clenched a little, and he continued, unthinking and untethered by _everything_ but this feeling, this one constant. “The past brought us together, so I can never reject it. I never will, just as I’ll never leave your side.”

“J-Judai…”

“Can I kiss you?” he asked, sitting up and letting bits of grass fall carelessly from his hair. Yubel’s fingers spread slightly, drifting over his skin with streaks of faint heat, and Judai lifted his free hand to their face, pressing his palm to the graceful slope of their jawline and taking in more of their warmth, as if his own blood could burn with the same intensity. As if he could take on even _more_ of Yubel’s self and let it temper all the things that he could wrongly dare to call just his, _only_ his own.

They had kissed before, an unspoken connection that they would each lean into, and- Yeah, it was still new to him, the unbelievable softness of Yubel’s lips pressed against his own, and he wanted, desperately, for that feeling to become familiar, because this was it. This bond was his certainty. It wound so delicately through them both, and he welcomed each new loop of that shadowed thread, each new unbreakable knot. He watched as Yubel titled their head down, his reverent hand sliding up to their hair and tangling in it.

Yubel’s scent was like lavender with something bitter and elusive underneath, and his nose brushed the narrow bridge of their own, their eyes as wide as his. The orange shone.

And then another beat passed, their lips twisting up into a smirk before their words were half-sung and half-purred against his mouth. “Mhm. Let's begin with just a kiss, shall we?”

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Saiou: Saiou's past experiences as an outsider and his desire for unity are mentioned in, among other places, episode 100 from season 2. I was hoping for something like a parallel with Johael's/Johan's young experiences, since it seems that these are traits that the Light was eager to warp/mess with.


	7. Chapter 7

\---

Months passed.

Although he did  _ technically _ miss the graduation party, it wasn’t long until he started running into some rather familiar duelists. Sho was the first, tackling him outside a train station and then shaking him by the shoulders while Winged Kuriboh hooted happily at the Vehicroids (nice support there, partner). Giving an easy smile, Judai had been quick to tap at Sho’s suit -- baggy, grey, and accompanied by a neatly knotted blue tie -- and Sho had been almost as quick to bat his hands away with an embarrassed pout. 

“Aniki, you’re going to wrinkle it!”

“Ah, no way. I would have to  _ try  _ to wrinkle it,” Judai replied before ruffling Sho’s hair, earning him a yelp of ‘ _ Hey, stop that!’  _ and some amused honks from the Vehicroids. Cyber End Dragon was a  _ bit  _ more scary, a length of glittering steel phasing through the platform and… Yeah. Some caution was needed here. Sheepish, Judai drew his hand back. Sorry, sorry.

"Maaaan… You're such a kid sometimes! And after all that talk of becoming an adult…" Sho grumbled, shoving at his mass of fluffy blue hair, and Judai could only laugh at that, guilty as charged. 

"Hmm... You gonna show me how it's done?"

"How  _ I _ act like an adult isn't going to be the same as how  _ you  _ should approach it," Sho pointed out, checking the time on his phone. The high-speed train for this platform was late; the overhead signs spelling that out with a few apologies thrown in. "I have a meeting with some potential sponsors for the Cyber Art Duel League. They want a full presentation too."

"Well, that explains the briefcase."

With a grimace, Sho looked down at it, as if it had suddenly latched onto his hand with the ferocity of a cartoon piranha. "I'm hoping that movies are right about how much rich people like charts, otherwise I've printed out a bunch of paper for nothing." 

Judai rolled his eyes. "It's not for nothing. A new experience is, well,  _ new _ , so no matter what you're going to learn from it. Don't you think?"

Sho just smiled at him before looking out at the tracks. "Yeah, makes sense to me.”

"Winged Kuriboh actually gives the best pep talks out of the group. Want me to translate?" Judai offered, and Sho just snorted, honks sounding out. "Ah, come on. Maybe I can get Daitokuji-sensei to pop out and ramble about alchemy. That's always good for a laugh."

"...Wait, how are you carrying his soul around?" Sho asked, and then he went pale. "Aniki, you're not  _ still  _ lugging Pharaoh around in that bag, are you?!"

"...Uh."

"No!"

"I-In my defense, he likes it!"

"You can't take a concealed pet on a train!"

"I mean, I've been doing that for awhile now, so…" Judai trailed off, flinching under Sho's glare while Yubel's chuckles bounced around his head. Yeah, whoops. 

Since they were heading in (roughly) the same direction, Judai soon found himself folded into a window seat and watching as Sho's hand gestures evolved from 'dramatic' to 'person trying to help land a plane without signal paddles'. Building something new within the professional duel scene (still reeling from the 'mysterious loss of DD', which was only mysterious if you didn't know one Edo Phoenix and the real reason why his yacht had magically transformed one night into a burnt-out shell of fiberglass) required connections, paperwork, and, naturally, wheelbarrows full of cash. From Sho's perspective, diplomacy was key. From Judai’s perspective, it sounded like a whole lot of work, and not the fun kind that involved a couple of duels along the way.

"My brother is at another meeting," was what Sho said after a lull, the train passing through a concrete tunnel before returning to the city's sprawl. "We're a team, and a big part of that is supporting each other and...trusting that we'll each be okay. His style has changed a lot, and others should see it. This league, it has the potential to be meaningful to so many others, not just ourselves. ...This is the part where you say something, by the way."

"Ah."

"With actual words."

Judai laughed, bumping their shoulders together. "It sounds like you've become the master of that demanding deck, Sho. Although, I get why you'd want to hear more than that from me. I  _ do  _ have quite the way with words…"

"You're impossible," Sho muttered, and he hugged Judai's arm to his chest. "You're also taking up the entire arm rest, so try not to complain."

"Your nerves are that bad, huh?"

" _ Yeah _ . Thanks for pointing it out…"

"How about a duel to cool you off?"

"...We're on a train."

"Here, watch this," Judai said before reaching with his not-Sho-detained hand and flipping out their meal trays. "Bam."

"You can't be serious."

"Well, I could ask the conductor to let us duel on the train instead, if you’re set on using Solid Vision,” Judai said with a wink.

"No way!" Sho announced, loud enough that someone from the next row flinched and dropped a magazine. “A crazy duel fan might mistake me for Insector Haga, in addition to the several million  _ other  _ things wrong with that plan.”

“...You do have blue hair and glasses. Plus you’re pretty short-”

“Okay! We’re dueling! Get ready, Aniki, to fall into the trap of my honed Cyber Style,” Sho declared, smacking his deck against the meal tray hard enough that he then muttered a curse, cradling his red palm. And, sure, it was more than just a  _ little  _ cramped, but a duel was a duel, and the spirits within the cards danced with the same life as they did on an open stage. The ordered, mechanical flow of Cyber End Dragon’s coils hummed with the energy contained underneath, buzzing like a static electricity in the air that only made Judai play faster, his heroes a blur of colours. Sho, of course, didn’t let him get away with a single risky move, that combined deck he wielded stronger than ever because of its contrasting parts, the fusion that it represented. 

A group of kids clustered around Sho’s seat, peering with wild eyes at the cards and gasping at each new move, their babbled questions answered so easily by Sho even though his focus remained on the duel. The New Kaiser, indeed.

It was close, Cyber End Dragon lashing through Judai’s front line and taking him down to 100 life points, which the crowd loved, naturally. Yubel’s claws were flitting over the back of his neck, unreal and yet dragging over his skin all the same, and he knew they were smiling, a more elegant one than his own that was all teeth and just... _ excitement _ . Excitement because Sho was out here killing it, chasing after that bold dream and running even faster than before. Excitement because those cards carried his will forward, their devotion to him secured. Excitement because, as Judai declared the final attack, he was reminded again of just how precious the future was, not just to himself and Yubel.

When Sho bounced off the train, it was with a broad, goofy, and totally lovable (totally  _ Sho _ ) grin over his shoulder and the spirits around him spinning in circles, animated by the same passion that moved their chosen duelist. As Judai returned to his seat, the kids were still there and had many, many new questions about the duel. With Yubel’s steadying touch on his shoulder, he found himself passing an hour like that, the Neo Spacians eager to show off -- heroes, after all, liked their fans. He laughed his way through card effects, with many demonstrations thrown in and ‘Ooohs!’ from the little group. 

Without Yubel’s chiding  _ ‘My dear’  _ inside his head, he would have definitely missed his stop, and he waved back to Rina, Satoshi, and Kira as he stepped out onto the platform. All of the kids had duel spirits clinging to their arms, but only Kira seems to notice it, often staring down at his elbow with a puzzled frown. In Judai’s experience, the ‘out of focus’ effect went away with time, and given how much that Baby Dragon babbled and flapped its little wings, the young boy already had a friend for life. Or maybe even longer than that.

...Yeah. Definitely longer than that.

Blocking out the noise from the crowded station and making for the exit, he prioritized instead his connection with Yubel, grasping at it.  _ ‘I’m starting to think that there’s a trend with how dragon spirits choose their duelists. ...That trend might even apply to half-dragons too.’ _

_ ‘Perhaps, but earning a dragon’s trust can be difficult,’  _ was Yubel’s response, the syllables light as their touch strengthened, a circle rubbed over his back. 

_ ‘Not that I’m surprised at all, but Sho and Cyber End have clearly partnered up too. ...The next duel might be even scarier for me.’ _

_ ‘Hmm. Although, your power will be changed as well,’  _ Yubel observed, the drawl of their voice almost feline, and Judai shook his head, chuckling as he strode outside and turned left, just because. The city teemed with new lights. 

It was getting easier. Everything, all of  _ this _ , was getting easier, and he reached back, his hand stroking a curve over the empty air where Yubel’s hand was. A reaction, and their warmth filled his chest.

\---

Within the month, he worked his way over to North America, and while he had _meant_ to just walk onto Asuka’s campus and look around, getting chased onto it by a pack of card thieves (seriously, those guys were _touchy_ ) before taking them down in a very public battle royale duel had made for quite the flashy entrance. Asuka -- stepping out of the gathered crowd with a textbook under one arm and her hair in a low ponytail -- had greeted him with a knowing smile. And then she’d taken him out for lunch.

Cardgames, a good friend, and some food. It didn’t get much better than that, Yubel’s long nails rasping gently over his hands and their self relaxed and uncoiled, despite the many people shifting around them.

It didn’t get much better...unless Asuka herself wanted to duel, of course. 

When she put the textbook down on the table, the laid-out utensils rattled, and Judai couldn’t stop himself from cringing a little. “If university means getting up early and carrying stuff like that around, then it’s  _ definitely  _ for the best that I’m skipping it.”

“Actually, my classes don’t start until 10,” she said, smoothing out her knee-length skirt.

“...Yeeeah, that still leaves...the rest of it,” Judai explained, waving one hand, and that made Asuka laugh.

Luck must’ve been on his side, since Asuka’s next class was canceled  _ while  _ they were arguing about ban lists over the remainder of his fries (“This happens far too often,” she had commented before clicking the screen off), which was the ideal segue into a duel. While Duel Academia’s main building had been  _ huge _ to his younger, more wide-eyed self, the university was on a completely different level, and without Asuka as his experienced guide, he would’ve needed much,  _ much  _ longer to find the dueling arenas. 

“Most people don’t duel in the plaza,” she observed, a reference to the earlier ‘fireworks’, and Judai could only smirk at that.

“To be fair, those guys didn’t give me  _ much  _ of a choice,” he replied, and then a certain overfed housecat started to fidget inside his bag. When he stopped and opened the top fully, he was greeted by two perked-up ears and a sleepy yowl. Asuka hid her amused grin behind a hand. “...Would you believe me if I said that I had no idea he was hitching a ride with me?”

“Not for a second.”

Sure, the few passing students giggled when an exceptionally drowsy Pharaoh stepped out of the bag and stretched, but considering that no one appeared with a cat cage or suddenly started yelling about the ‘rules’, it seemed perfectly fine. “Daitokuji-sensei’s bugging you to get out, isn’t he? That’s pretty mean of your owner…” Judai drawled as, right on cue, a ball of light shot out of Pharaoh's opened jaws and started bouncing around the wide hallway.

“Things like this are why my stories about school always seem so strange to other people,” Asuka stated, and the ball of light dropped a little. 

Scratching those perked-up ears until Pharaoh let out a satisfied purr, Judai shrugged and said, “I’m not sure how upsetting Pharoah’s stomach fits in with, you know, being involved with the Seven Stars Assassins and Kagemaru’s immortality thing, but, sensei, I’m  _ starting  _ to think that you might have a cruel side.”

“...Ah! Actually, Pharaoh reacted all on his own!” the ball of light squeaked out. The others in the hallway were too far away to, likely, notice anything strange. Daitokuji hurriedly continued. “Still, it is, I must say,  _ very  _ convenient because we’ve just passed something that might be of interest to you!”

“...In the chemistry wing?” was Judai’s skeptical answer, all the signs with beakers on them giving him a clue of where they were, not to mention all the flyers about ‘lab safety’ on the nearby corkboards. Hanging out with his former alchemy teacher _had_ expanded his vocabulary in weird new ways (there had to be an explanation for where all that stuff about metals and planets, some of it _in Latin_ , was coming from and why it kept getting into his own brain).

Still, Judai’s reaction to anything science-y hadn’t changed much since his first year at Duel Academia. 

“Hey, are anyone else’s eyelids suddenly really heavy?”

“J-Judai!” the ball of light squeaked. “Please, just follow me! It will be worth your time!”

“Ooo, delaying a duel with Asuka… I’m not sure you can convince me so easily,” Judai replied, teasing, and Yubel chuckled inside his head. 

“Maybe we should go along with it.” At Judai’s pout because, hey,  _ dueling _ , Asuka quickly added, “I’m free for the next two hours. Therefore, I’m sure I can spare five minutes to take you down, Judai.”

His smirk showed teeth, the shape of it all Yubel. “...Ah, that  _ does  _ sound fun.”

And yet, contrary to the excitement of a duel versus a rival, he  _ did  _ find himself taking long strides after Daitokuji-sensei -- Asuka at his side and Pharaoh in his arms, purring more like a lawn mower than a happy cat. They retraced their earlier steps and took a right down a seemingly random corridor, followed by another right and another eerily long stretch of nothing but floor-to-ceiling windows and grey office doors. Daitokuji-sensei babbled about a sign he had seen outside the registration building, which had conveniently been next to a full-sized map of this particular wing of the school, although what exactly was  _ on  _ the sign remained a ‘surprise’. ...For the next couple of minutes.

“...Is this layout  _ trying  _ to get people lost?” Judai blurted out when the totally-boring hallway opened into a wide room that could have fit  _ all  _ of the Ra Yellow dorms inside, the skylights positioned above a two-story-tall sculpture of a wiggly, DNA-y thing, and Asuka let out a long-suffering sigh.

“Trust me, I don’t get it either.”

Energized, their former teacher did  _ not  _ slow down, weaving quickly through the crowd and making a beeline for a set of opened double-doors on the far left. A fold-out sign declared that it led to a temporary exhibit on ‘Harmony, Alchemy, and the Magic of the Renaissance’.

“You have such a one-track mind,” Judai said, and Daitokuji-sensei just whisked inside and out of sight. Which was...fine. Totally fine. “I think he’s forgotten that some of us have a duel to get to…”

“What was that about a ‘one-track mind’?” Asuka asked, and, okay, she had him there, Yubel’s laughter flitting through him next. 

Inside was the usual puzzled-out pathway of a museum floor, more glasses-encased pedestals behind each rigid corner, and at the sight of a security guard, Judai made a point of putting Pharaoh inside his jacket, the top clasps undone so that the cat could stare out at the world with a bleary, this-doesn’t-involve-food-and-therefore-it’s-boring stare. And, yeah, that  _ did  _ mean he had to keep both his arms down by his stomach to support Pharaoh’s weight, but this also wasn’t the first time he’d done this little maneuver. Most of the exhibits were light on the ‘ancient and rare artifacts’ that would be like candy for thieves, opting instead for old tools and prints accompanied by massive blocks of text. 

“Maybe we should split up to track him down,” Judai suggested, walking over to where Asuka was frowning at a dense paragraph in too-small font, a wrinkle of concentration between her thin eyebrows. 

“Hm. And what’s your plan for catching him?”

“Err… I’ll toss the cat at him?” At her sudden pivot, he added, “W-Well, it  _ usually  _ works…”

“Like I said earlier, our duel isn’t going to take long. Let’s just go through the rooms and see what we find.”

“A bunch of empty flasks… Some books I don’t want to read…”

“That’s just  _ this  _ room,” Asuka pointed out before taking his arm and hauling/dragging him with her (those tennis arms were not to be messed with). To be fair, the next room  _ was  _ more interesting, the far wall blazing with a tapestry in bold reds and orange, a green dragon curled in the middle and unfurling its mighty wings. Hand-blown glass instruments were tucked behind their protective cases, next to texts on vellum and written with swirling characters. “...Daitokuji-sensei considers you to be a great alchemist, doesn’t he?”

At the sound of her voice, he startled, blinking wildly at the intricately woven threads of the dragon. “Uh, apparently, but I’m pretty sure by now that it mostly applies to fusion summoning, not anything that could explode if I mix it the wrong way.”

She paused, her fingers on his arm and tapping slightly. “So...that means you can’t give me a full tour of this place and tell me what everything means?”

“I...can make stuff up, if that counts,” he answered, and she giggled quietly, ducking her head. “But, really, fusion is all I got. Take two things, turn them into one thing, which hopefully has some cool effects attached.”

“Like with you and Yubel.”

“...Yeah, true,” he said, and Asuka gave him a searching look. “Uh… I mean, Yubel brought the fire, wings, magic-piercing gaze, super-strength, super-defense, and… I could go on for hours.”

“I’m sure you could.”

“...Don’t get me wrong though. I brought the...cool gestures. Like, the ‘Gotcha’ pose is iconic.”

“Seems like a fair trade,” Asuka teased, and, patting his shoulder, she moved towards the next archway, her hands clasped behind her back. The initials of her university were spread over the front of her shirt. “So, do you believe that there’s something specific Daitokuji-sensei wanted you to see here?”

He stepped back from the tapestry. “...Not really.”  _ ‘You got an idea?’ _

_ ‘No, not yet,’  _ they mused, a bit sleepily.

_ ‘Everything alright?’ _

_ ‘Hmm? Oh, of course. I was lost in thought, although not deeply enough I would fail to watch over you, Judai.’ _

_ ‘I’m not doubting that,’  _ he directed back at them, an equally sleepy amusement flowing towards his consciousness.  _ ‘So… What’s up?’ _

_ ‘A place like this is an attempt to stop the erosion of history, much like the relics kept inside of Alanorn’s own castle,’  _ Yubel mused, their transparent hand reaching up from his wrist and then brushing the very edge of a pedestal: a stone tablet inside, the front a maze of unknown characters.  _ ‘Although, the history of this reality is indeed complex. The tale of our past is unlikely to have any material traces here. The stones of that castle are lost, like whispers spoken alone in a forgotten cave.’ _

_ ‘And yet...all of it still influences us,’  _ he observed, and their claws curled in before disappearing, dissipating.  _ ‘‘Complex’ is a good word for it.’ _

“Judai?”

“Yeah?” he asked, blinking at Asuka. She mimed buttoning up her cardigan, and, with a quick apology to Pharaoh, he did his jacket up  _ just  _ enough to dodge that security guard from earlier before undoing it again. There was an annoyed grumble, Pharaoh batting at his hand. “Sorry, buddy. You  _ could  _ just wait outside though…” Not that a stubborn cat like Pharaoh would ever take that option. 

Behind the next partition were more relics from the ages, and at first, none of them caught his eye the way that tapestry did, the flow of the green dragon’s scales like that of a wild river. According to a stencil on the wall, this part of the exhibit was devoted to ‘Illuminated Manuscripts’, which seemed to be ancient, probably-super-expensive picture books with letters in jet black and scarlet. 

He had just been looking around, balancing Pharaoh as the cat fidgeted and grumbled away, and then he was standing in front of a glass class, the book underneath it opened in an explosion of competing colours. Red letters versus the blue border. The image spanning the top was of a fallen knight, the grey armors awash with flames as the countryside around him burned. The sky above was an impossible mixture of green, blue, and yellow, with purple torn across the middle like a wound. The scrap of paper next to it told him that the book showed ‘interpretations of Arthurian tales.' The grail -- a shallow bowl that lay uselessly at the knight's side -- was supposed to be an analog for the philosopher's stone. Or something like that. 

A gleaming white sword rose up from the knight's chest, the blood pooling below in pure red.

Hefting Pharaoh higher, Judai stepped back and found something else to stare at. 

_ 'It's messed up,'  _ he thought, Yubel only humming back at first. 

_ 'Jurian did see fallen ones like that as he reigned. The memories are faint. I cannot offer you the clarity you're reaching for.' _

_ 'I…'  _ He breathed out, finding Asuka engrossed in a massive paragraph on the other side of the room. That made him grin a little, and it grew more as the seconds passed.  _ 'I get we're not the same people, trust me on that. But it's…impossible to ignore the connection we have. He made the Gentle Darkness, for one thing.' _

_ 'I'll find a way to stop you from getting into any sword fights, if that helps,'  _ was Yubel's dry reply, which he fondly shook his head at. Ah, they  _ would  _ do that, too…

_ ''Kay, deal. So, you got an idea of where a certain soul has floated off to…?' _

Yubel didn't pause to consider it at all, their face shimmering to his left with a condescending grimace, their eyes hyper-bright.  _ ‘What’s this? You’re giving up on the search? Tsk, tsk…’ _

_ ‘Hey…'  _ "Alright, I'll play along… Not like I have a duel or anything waiting," he muttered, Yubel's laughter gliding in as their features softening. That left him with no choice but to laugh too, and Asuka, breaking out her daze, turned around and blinked at him.

"Did you find Daitokuji-sensei?"

"Hmm… I'm actually considering leaving him here, all alone… Without a nice cat to act as a taxi for him… And no one to put up with his stories about robbing graves or experimenting on-"

"W-Wait!"

Right on cue, the ball of light zoomed in close to their little group, and Judai turned on his heels and let Pharaoh, at the perfect height, catch it in his jaws. 

"Hey, nice aim, buddy," Judai cooed, and Asuka rubbed those scruffy ears Pharaoh's purring returned with a vengeance. "So, about that duel we've been delaying…"

"I-It's in the next room! Really!" his disembodied teacher squeaked while Asuka repeated the phrase 'robbing graves' to herself a few times. Daitokuji-sensei had led an...interesting life, overall. 

"Alright. Let's see what the big deal is…"

The next room was also the last one, and none of the few artifacts on display sent his mind reeling, going far into a fathomless darkness and struggling to return to where the shadows were thin, gentle. Necklaces in bronze and silver gleamed under the artificial lights, as did delicate instruments with insignias pressed into their sides, and Daitokuji-sensei urged them to go right past all of it, making for the very back and the glass-covered table that spanned the wall there. Inside were more solemn tomes, these printed with an early machine. The text was in neat lines, uniform grey, and probably Latin. The diagrams were stiff and rigid, showing gemstones and their variants opposed with the alchemic symbols for the seven classical planets. Which Judai knew, for some reason.

Daitokuji-sensei was really becoming too good of a teacher. 

"What...does this mean?" Asuka -- who had not been camping with an alchemy teacher for over a year -- asked, and Judai answered, shrugging as he went.

"Seven is an important number for many alchemists, apparently. 'Course it varies, but a lot of, err, 'systems' use seven alchemic metals, and some use seven stages to organize experiments, believe in seven stages of the spirit, etc etc. The main point here is that each of the seven classical planets is paired up with one of the metals."

"...I think we had a lecture on this once," Asuka commented, frowning. Then, she added, "Is there a gem for each planet too?"

"That's a question for the master," Judai said, jiggling Pharaoh once. Daitokuji-sensei responded after a startled yelp.

“C-Contrary to what many students believe, alchemy isn’t only concerned with the disciplines we today would call chemistry, medicine, metallurgy, and geology, just to name a few. In fact, astrology, not to mention cosmology, is crucial to the entire discipline! Those in the esoteric branch particularly are- Anyways,” Daitokuji-sensei said next, laughing to himself, “what’s important here is that many alchemists have associated their valuable materials with other valuable materials! Say, gold with the sun.”

“Then… This book is about linking the metals, the planets, and these gems together?” Asuka questioned. 

“Yes! The author of this text worked tirelessly to establish these links, although he sadly never completed his studies. Even just this page is, well, disappointing…” Undeterred, the ball of light vibrated, and their teacher continued briskly. “W-What I mean to say is that the infinite angles of approach between the metals, planets, and gems have fascinated thinkers throughout the ages! Judai, as the ultimate alchemist, you’re of course connected to the seven alchemical metals, but through your Neo Spacian cards, you’re also a master of these planets too!”

“...Okay. Uh, thanks?” Judai replied, Asuka rolling her eyes at his right and peering again at the faded pages.

“It’s a compelling subject, isn’t it? And, ah, the gems! They embody parts of the light spectrum, under some viewpoints. Each colour can be matched with a metal! And… Judai.”

The tone had changed -- serious, worried. Judai smiled, looking into the orb that darted away from Pharaoh. “Say what you want already, teacher. Asuka’s not going to hold anything against me in our duel.”

“I’ll admit that I only saw this exhibit by accident, but it reminded me of how crucial it is to pursue the subjects that matter deeply to you. The author of this text, he never grasped the fundamentals of the science he claimed to love, which is why he struggled like this. But, Judai, you have the gift of intuition. You can see what others simply cannot. Therefore, if there’s something you want to say to Johan, trust yourself. You’ll find the words!”

Of course Daitokuji-sensei had noticed his struggles, his nights of being torn awake. And, likewise, Daitokuji-sensei had also noticed how old scars were being poked at, scratched at. Jurian had become a hollow shell from grief, and Judai, after Johan had been left behind in that other dimension, had been  _ so _ -

He still had no idea how to define those feelings he had for Johan.

He couldn’t just draw a circle around them and move on. They always expanded, morphed. They remained in a state of flux.

Since graduation, there had been nights that he -- wide-eyed, with his mind working faster and faster -- had wanted to call Johan and just...do something. 

“...I guess showing up at his doorstep to talk about rocks and planets could be fun, right?”

“I can’t imagine you and Johan ever running out of things to talk about,” Asuka observed, bumping his arm, and Judai shook his head, Yubel rumbling their affirmation inside it.

_ ‘It seems that you’re surrounded on all sides. A difficult position for any commander….’ _

_ ‘Ha, yeah… You got me there. Plus, this position of mine, it isn’t worth defending, is it?’  _ he replied. After all, he was...being a stubborn idiot, as if going to see Johan would make his insides crumble. It wouldn’t. It...was needed, wasn’t it? In midair, the soul bobbed once before lowering again, Pharaoh batting at it again. The teacher continued, light-hearted.

“Judai, don’t forget how much you’ve grown since that first year! Your experiences are all the materials you need for a miracle, or have you forgotten that lesson of mine, hmmm?”

“Yeah, yeah. Got it. You don’t have to keep trying to convince me, sensei,” Judai teased, and that’s when Pharaoh, with a cheerful ‘gulp’, made their alchemy teacher disappear. “...Guess we can go have that duel, huh?”

Asuka hummed, her hands clasped behind her back. “Did you know that Johan came to the one-year party?”

“Uh, no,” he admitted, and he followed Asuka out of the exhibit hall, having to use her for cover a few times against the now-way-more-active security guards. She only grinned at that. 

“Manjoume dueled him to prove who the ‘Real King of North Academy’ was.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“So, who-?”

“I’ll only tell you who won if you can beat me,” Asuka said as she gilded ahead by a few more steps, her own grin showing itself next. “Also, don’t worry. We’re booking an even bigger event hall for next year, and my brother has already promised to be our ‘host’ of the night. I’ll send your invitation early.”

“I lucked out to have a rival like you, Asuka.”

“Hm. We  _ are  _ rivals, aren’t we?” she observed, letting her expression turn arrogant, challenging, and, hell, that duel could only be great like that. Throwing out his own banter, he trailed after her all the way to the dueling club’s arena, Asuka’s presence startling a few students and making whispers start up about her Cyber Angels. There was no way that the duel would be just a quiet, little thing in one of the corner dueling stations. Especially not when the attacks started, those first explosives rendered in Solid Vision rocketing across the space in lashes of fire-red. 

Like this, a duel could only exist to connect people, and -- taking a deep breath before cracking his knuckles, Asuka smirking at him from across a field of angels poised to attack -- he started his own counter.

\---

Getting those plane tickets didn’t take long at all. Johan’s texts had also come in pretty quickly, each one a little reminder that, hey, they  _ were  _ best friends.

He just happened to be the friend with the bad habit of running away sometimes, as if getting lost again and again was a substitute for reaching a hand out, for getting real honest about the actual problem.

Of course, since this  _ was  _ Johan, meeting up had one...complication. 

“...Hey, Yubel?”

‘ _ Yes?’ _

“...Why do I have the feeling that he’s taken a wrong turn somewhere?”

Yubel chuckled, a warm prickle flashing over the back of his neck, and Judai shoved his hands deeper in his pockets, pouting a little when the chill only seemed to deepen. Half-hidden by his collar and a cheap scarf, his cheeks had turned pink, which was  _ fine  _ for meeting Johan of all people, but, still. He had sorta hoped to make a cool entrance, one  _ marginally  _ better than freezing the various soft parts of his body off while standing in front of a statue of a person whose name he had no idea how to pronounce. The figure in bronze made for an easy meeting point, as if he had a temporary buddy until Johan showed up.

Johan, who was  _ definitely  _ late.

“I get that directions aren’t his strong point, but he’s from here. That should give him a ‘home turf’ advantage, don’t you think?” Judai observed, and Yubel made a ‘ _ tsk tsk _ ’ noise inside his head.

‘ _ You’re getting those looks again… Not that you seem to mind them.’ _

“What can I say? I’m a good-looking guy, so I should turn a few heads either way,” he replied, perfectly aware that, as usual, Yubel was one-hundred-percent right -- a far-too-comfortable-looking man with a puffy black coat over a business suit raising an eyebrow as he passed the statue. Maybe living here increased a person’s ‘cold resistance’ like a stat in a videogame. If nothing else, that’d explain why Johan’s stories about North Academy missed out on the mandatory ten-to-twenty-minute rants about the ‘blood-chilling nights of death’ that Manjoume’s always had. 

It had been, in hindsight, a good idea to leave Pharaoh & Company at Sho’s for a bit.

Maybe moving his mouth would, you know, stop the cold. Even a fraction. Therefore, the stares were justifiable. 

_ ‘Hm. Alright.’ _

“...I was fishing for a compliment there. Just… In case you missed the cue. ...About how I’m good-looking.” A rumbling laugh from Yubel, and then Judai moved back on his heels, his stupid grin directed to the overcast sky. “Hey, you think we should look for him?”

_ ‘Some might say that it's hypocritical for you to complain of someone else's tardiness.’ _

"Ha. You sound like Sho," Judai said, putting his chin back into the warm crevice of his collar-scarf combo. 

_ ‘Well, I’ll admit that traveling the world while solving various mysteries about duel spirits and reversing the thefts of their cards does make it difficult to keep a consistent schedule…’ _

“Hm. You say that as if you don’t love it,” Judai commented through their connection, and then he stopped speaking aloud. For the plane-ride over, he hadn’t slept at all. The connection was via ferry, and he’d watched the water slosh off the hull. _‘I...know this will sound really, really weird, but there’s some stupid, demanding part of me that hopes Johan won’t have any crazy stories to tell me. Not that I want him to be_ bored _with school and those side-jobs for Pegasus’ company that Asuka told me about… And yet… I can be such a selfish guy, can’t I?’_

_ ‘It’s not selfish to hope that your dear friend is safe,’  _ Yubel rumbled back, and, yeah, they had a point. A damn good one, at that.  _ ‘Furthermore, I’m sure that he wishes the same for you. Or would you consider him ‘selfish’ for that?’ _

_ ‘Johan? Selfish? I’ll give myself a headache if I even try to think that through,’  _ he directed back to Yubel, and then he paused, hearing the crunch-crunch-crunch of someone’s boots hitting the snow at a steady run. People usually ran when they were late, after all. Next, the musical thrill of Ruby Carbuncle reached him. It drifted above the sounds of the city center and made Winged Kuriboh suddenly rise from the card, the spirit coo-ing back as Judai felt himself give a very wide and very ridiculous smile at the person sprinting across the path. Naturally, Judai met his halfway, folding Johan into a tight hug and trying not to laugh when Johan suddenly went boneless, panting from the run. In the background, the umpteenth round of Ruby v Kuriboh had started again, their yelps and hoots, respectively, ringing out and climbing, but, hey, it was fine. Everything was fine now that Johan was here, sinking more and more into the crook of his shoulder, a whorl of blue hair obscuring his vision.

“Sorry, I’m a little gross,” Johan mumbled into the fabric of his jacket, as if a bit of sweat mattered at all. Judai rolled his eyes.

“Hey, you’re warming me up, so I can’t complain about it all that much.” Johan just sighed in response, and Judai ran a hand up the back of his neck, idly ruffling his going-absolutely-everywhere hair.  _ “ _ Although… There is one thing I can  _ absolutely  _ complain about.”

“Ah, I have to apologize again to you and Yubel for that. Sorry for the wait! I swear, the streets here just  _ move _ sometimes,” Johan observed, his smile audible and obviously just as broad as Judai’s own, and he squawked when Judai tried to get him a headlock, ruffling his hair even more. “H-Hey! N-Not fair!”

“Hey, I’m just trying to warm up my hands!”

“...A-Alright, here I come!”

In hindsight, Judai  _ probably  _ should’ve been able to predict what happened next -- Johan’s bare fingers suddenly snaking under his jacket, sweater, and shirt and going for his ribcage, the shock of  _ cold  _ combined with some expert-level tickling. And, yep, it didn’t take long at all until they were both leaning against the statue for support, red-faced from laughing with snow clinging to their clothes. Their eyes met, Johan’s that spring kind of green -- like when warm sunlight turned the underside of a young leaf brighter, revealing the networks of detail there. Chirping, Ruby leaped over to his shoulder, where she fit perfectly. 

“Ah… My ribs hurt…”

“ _ Your  _ ribs hurt? What about mine?” Judai asked, impish, and Johan giggled, looking away. 

“ _ Well _ … Okay, okay. Let’s go find a cafe, and I’ll get you whatever you want to make up for it.”

“...That’s a tempting offer, Mr. Andersen,” Judai drawled, and, despite Johan having a couple of centimeters on his own height, he threw an arm over Johan’s shoulders, bonking their heads together slightly. 

At first, Johan just hummed, his stare on the patchwork of shops across the nearest street. Ruby’s tail swayed past his profile, the red gleaming like a ripe apple. “True, but today is a special occasion.”

To that, Judai smiled.

Yeah, it was.

\---


	8. Chapter 8

\---

Next to a window on the second floor of a small but well-loved building, the table that they found had a clear view of the park below, the thin trees lightly dusted with snow and reaching up towards the white-grey sky, like a great swath of sea foam. Judai’s point-at-some-pastries-behind-the-glass-and-hope-that-they-out-good strategy had, as usual, been extremely effective, and he’d also experienced such a wonderful, pure joy when his attempt to pronounce ‘Laskiaispulla’ had made Johan choke on his coffee and bury his face in his hands, trying to hold the laughter back.

“Hey, hey. Some people would consider that rude,” Judai chided, batting Johan’s leg with his foot under the table. “So, even the princely Johan Andersen has an evil side…”

“P-Princely? No way. I don’t have the, uh, ‘aura’ for that,” he replied, wiping at his eyes with one long sleeve. “Case in point, I might’ve just gotten coffee up my nose.”

“I’m taking that as a compliment.”

“Ha, you should,” Johan said, and he put his hands down, flat on the table. His eyes sparkled with amusement. “Actually, I didn’t realize it until now, but things lately have been… Ah, what’s the word for it?”

“Lask-”

“ _ No _ , absolutely  _ not _ ,” Johan blurted out, and when Judai pointedly started on the first syllable again, Johan -- already shaking with repressed laughter and turning a little red -- reached across the table and slapped a hand over his mouth. A small squabble ensued, during which Yubel remained curled up cat-like in the recesses of his mind. Around them, all remained hushed and slow. Suspended in time.

He knew when Johan found the word he had been looking for. The green changed, flickering to a deeper shade. 

“Things lately have been so... _ structured _ , which isn’t exactly... _ bad _ . But…” He paused, drumming his fingers on the table. “While I like taking new classes and working for Pegasus, there are...still things I want to do. I can feel that pull, telling me to just...go outside! Enter a tournament! Track down some villains! Or…” Sighing, he broke off, and Judai could only smile at him and Ruby, the cat spirit pawing at his cheek and mewling. “Ruby keeps saying that I’ve got ‘commitment issues’.”

“Well, that’s scandalous for a prince.”

This time, Johan tapped his leg. “Hey, I’m looking for backup here.”

“Alright, I got you.” Leaning forward, Judai rested his elbows on the table, and Johan straightened a little, their eyes meeting again. “Everyone I’ve talked to since graduating has felt that same thing. Seriously, Kenzan called me out of nowhere last week saying he wanted to stop using dinos. Kenzan, as in the guy with actual DNA from an actual dinosaur.  _ He  _ thought a dino deck didn’t suit him anymore.” Judai scoffed for effect, earning him a wonderful change to Johan’s smile -- the little bits of tension falling away. “I’m thinking that self-doubt is an unskippable level in the videogame known as life. Or… Uh. It’s like… It’s present in all of us. That’s how Darkness was able to cause so much trouble in our final year.”

“Yeah. Those times were intense. Although, we all came out of it in the end,” Johan observed, tilting his head at Ruby before winking. The spirit meowed back, her tail swishing happily. "Plus, it'd take more than an evil being like that to mess with me and Ruby's bond! Not to mention our own, Judai."

"Obviously. No contest," he answered with a nod. Although that feeling was back again. He needed to say more, to do  _ something _ that he still couldn't figure out. The truth was blurred beyond recognition, and yet looking at Johan now gave him hope. 

Maybe he could really put words to it. Maybe he could pull apart this one  _ knot  _ that had stayed with him ever since the Dark World. Yeah, the Supreme King’s power was his own, impossible to reject or separate from his fused soul. And,  _ yeah _ , he trusted Johan down to the core, and yet-

And yet, it was undeniable. The dreams from that past life had made him afraid in a familiar yet unfamiliar way. He looked at his hands. Unfurling within him, Yubel murmured in support. Their dual hearts beat as one. 

He tried to phrase it. A weakness pulled at his throat. He overcame it.

"I have nightmares about losing you.”

He had said it while glancing out the window, bits of snow catching themselves in wild spirals and slowly drifting down.  _ ‘You’re okay, my dear,’  _ was what Yubel finally whispered, and it made him conscious of the simple fact that, yes, he had gone completely quiet after that, his hands clenched around each other and completely numb. Beyond the fog, someone else took a deep breath. 

When Johan knocked their ankles together, Judai was startled, blinking quickly at the park, then at the floorboards, then at the white edge of his empty cup, and then at Johan, who only grinned back at first. The silence made Judai want to stutter out an explanation or make a joke bad enough to distract from...this. 

_ ‘Why did that sound so weird?’  _ he thought to Yubel, their own calm state conflicting with his too-fast heart, his scrambling mind. More of them sank into him.

_ ‘I assure you that it didn’t sound ‘weird’, my dear,’  _ Yubel answered, and Judai swallowed, although his throat still felt tight. Winged Kuriboh hooted softly from his shoulder.

Right. Speaking. He could do that.

“‘Guess I should’ve waited until after your coffee to start with the ‘heavy stuff’… Anyways," he said quickly, dragging a hand up the back of his neck and through his shaggy hair, "I'm trying not to be too hard on myself about it, but it's...not fun at all. I wish I had nightmares about, say, losing that first duel to Chronos-sensei. At least then I could laugh about it later."

Johan ducked his head, stifling a strange, winding laugh. "When we first started hanging out, I remember everyone joking about how we were twins, right down to our shoe sizes. Maybe it's not at all surprising that we're so similar about this too."

“You’re...having nightmares about the Dark World?”

“I don’t even know if it’s the Dark World, really,” Johan answered, stirring his drink before stroking Ruby’s gleaming forehead. “I can’t see anything, and all I can think about is you. About how I wish whatever  _ happened  _ could be reversed. About how I don’t want to die and leave you. About how I want Yubel to protect you forever.”

“Johan…”

Their eyes met again, Johan’s smile a light. “It’s okay, really. We’ve been through a lot, and I’ve got my family with me, including Ruby here.” There was a pause, just a short one, and suddenly Judai was blurting more things out, Johan’s fingers drawing their steady lines over Ruby’s forehead gem.

“I’ve seen more of my past life with Yubel too, and because it just gets so messed up towards the end, I keep mixing the emotions from that time and the ones from before, when you were in the Dark World. Or...even from when Darkness was here. It’s…” With a frustrated sigh, he broke off. The park outside only collected more of the falling snow. “It’s...getting to me a lot more than I want it to.”

Aside from the two waitresses giggling to each other on the first floor, it really did seem like they were otherwise alone in the building, their rickety table with grooved marks of wear drifting into silence. Ruby and Winged Kuriboh were actually behaving themselves, Winged Kuriboh rising up and floating around the wooden beams above. None of the chairs here matched; the menus shoved to the side of their table had corrections in little pieces of tape with the new numbers in blue pen. 

Johan had a glittery Band-Aid around one thumb. A grocery list was scrawled over the back of his right hand in purple. His fluffy hair was as carefree as ever. 

His smile was a bit sad as their eyes met, Johan's that faultless spring-green. 

"You know that I love you, right?" Johan said, and there was only one way he could answer that, a smirk turning his face. 

"Hey, come on. Of course I do."

"Ah, good. Otherwise that would've been awkward," Johan joked, tilting his head to the side, and the fascination in his gaze was powerful, undeniable. "Whatever the future brings, that's not going to change at all, so if you need me to be there for you, just let me know. I mean it."

"Johan…"

Even if the snow had found its path inside and piled up around them, over them, he would've thought of spring, captured as it was in how Johan looked back at him. Lethargic, Yubel's presence was a warmth underneath his skin, and they spoke to him as a calm finally, incrementally, settled into place. 

_ ‘I promise not to burn down this charming little cafe if you say those words to Johan, just to clarify that.’ _

_ ‘What words?’ _

_ ‘Come on, my dear. There's no need to be coy.’ _

_ ‘Uh, if you...say so?’ _

_ ‘Hmm. You really need more time to recognize it… I see, I see…’  _ Yubel drawled out before folding in on themselves again, the warmth growing but also retreating, as if it was really becoming a part of his bones, reaching all the way to the marrow. Without thinking, he closed his eyes and tried to chase that feeling, as if he was running after Yubel and trying to tap on their shoulder. Like, hey. Come on. Don't just bolt away.

_ ‘Oi, what does  _ that  _ mean? ...Ah, fine. Enjoy your nap.’ _

_ ‘I will,’  _ Yubel chirped back, and when Judai let out a tired sigh and rolled his eyes, Johan giggled, his smile going even wider.

“Ah, I hope you two aren’t fighting…”

“Nah. Yubel’s just holding all the cards, as usual,” Judai replied, and even though his own drink was empty, he twirled the spoon around his empty cup once, drumming his fingers on the tabletop next. “So, you’re from this city, right?”

“Sort of, not that it helps much when I’m walking around,” Johan admitted, shrugging, and Judai knocked their shoes together. Above them, Winged Kuriboh made a swipe at Ruby, and round one-thousand of their game of hide and seek was kicked off, their squeaks and mewls flitting between the clicks of cutlery and the soft chatter from the floor below them. The old floorboards squeaked and grumbled when anyone moved too quickly, as if the building itself was nagging those two employees to slow down, take it easy. 

Outside the glass, snowflakes took their uneven, winding path all the way down to the ground, sometimes getting tossed around by the wind as they went. And still, despite the park being a sheet of white interlaced with the exposed grey of tree bark and the pale facades of the bordering townhouses, Judai could only think of green, like such a predictable cliché. He shook his head, laughing to himself.

Ah, okay.

Yubel’s message wasn’t so tough after all, especially not to the point that he’d need to get out some pens and paper to work out the meaning. It was...right there, as visible as his somewhat-undone laces or the grey cuff of Johan’s knit sweater.

Shoving his chair back, Judai threw his coat on again and let the scarf hang whenever it wanted to, his attention already back again on Johan -- who was blinking wildly, stammering out his name when he whirled around the table and then leaned over Johan, all excitement and energy. Yeah, damn. It really had been obvious, which meant there was only one option. They should go experience something, a whole  _ city  _ breathing around them at that very moment. The haze of the snow -- blue-tinted, overlaying the brittle greenery that remained despite the cold and shining in the sections unmarked by footprints. He could almost feel it already, the sensation of bolting out into this waiting, living world with Johan at his heels, or a step ahead. 

Either way, it’d be fun, right?

“You can give me the grand tour though, can’t you?” Judai asked, adding on his best ‘don’t look too closely at my change, since I’m missing a few coins’ wink, and Johan sputtered, knocking over  _ something  _ that jangled loudly against the table.

“J-Judai?!”

“Is that a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’?” was his simple question, punctuated by him swiping Johan’s drink and taking a pointed sip, which he almost spat out. “Ah! M-My teeth are c-chattering!”

Rolling those eyes, Johan pulled the cup out of his (dramatically) shaking fingers and then gathered up the rest of the table, Ruby and Winged Kuriboh chasing each other across the top once before continuing their game (more like a battle) under their chairs. “Man, do I have stories about North Academy that’d blow your mind…”

“Thunder said the soup came as ice cubes,” Judai commented, springing back and, stealthily, grabbing his own cup before Johan could. He could be a gentleman too. ...Sort of.

(Yubel chuckled in the recesses of his mind, making their warmth bubble-up and tickle him a bit. Ah, Judai, don’t be so shy...)

“He wasn’t lying ‘bout that,” Johan said as he got up. The stairs rumbled and squeaked with each step down, and after they were on the street again -- the chill making his face glow and his fingers dive into his pockets while Johan just laughed and continued walking -- Judai gave his own answer. He gave them a fun topic to mess around with for, oh, a few hours, minimum.

“You know, Asuka told me that your Crystal Beasts and the Ojamas got into a fight not-so long ago…”

"Oh, did she?" Johan replied, linking their arms and yanking Judai in the opposite direction before turning them around again. Johan's face went red, from embarrassment rather than the cold. That sense of direction was a real force to be reckoned with, and Judai, chuckling, wanted to-

_ ‘Oh. Err…’ _

_ ‘...You woke me up because you had the unmistakable desire to give that person you lovingly compared to a spring day just minutes ago a kiss on the cheek?’ _

_ ‘...I...guess so?’ _

_ ‘Judai, I was designed to become virtually indestructible and immune to all sorts of maladies, and yet you’ve managed to give me what I can only describe as a ‘headache’. I feel as though I should congratulate you on that.’ _

He rolled his eyes, and Johan’s puzzled look quickly changed to one of understanding, Ruby herself meeping out a bright ‘Stop fighting!’ as she climbed up Johan’s free arm and nuzzled his face. “We’re not fighting, I swear,” Judai said, and he let Johan direct them down a narrower street, the shop windows full of baked goods and teeming with customers, all calling out to each other on the sidewalk. Carefree. Comfortable. 

Snowflakes had nestled themselves in Johan’s teal strands. 

Ever since they had shaken hands after that duel, it was as if Johan had painted new colours over his world, filling in negative spaces with vibrant brush strokes and always, constantly making everything brighter than before, making him want to stop and stare out at all this vibrant life had to show him. And, so, he really couldn’t deny it any longer, could he?

As they rambled past a used bookstore -- the bits of snow all swaying with the weakened breeze and seeming to, for a beat, actually stop in place -- Judai leaned over and quickly pressed a kiss against Johan’s warm cheek, the start of Johan’s next sentence trailing into nothing. Judai said the words before he pulled away, clutching Johan’s arm tightly. There were times before (so many) when he had wanted to hold him like this, a confirmation that he was still there and breathing. Standing. Living on.

“By the way, I love you too, so don’t forget it, alright?” Judai’s words ended with a wild, winding smirk, and he stopped Johan -- red, extremely red -- from leading them both into a parked car. Ruby’s little meep could only be translated as ‘Really, Johan?’.

“I-I-I- I w-won’t!” Johan quickly chattered back, and when Judai ruffled his hair, he ducked his chin below his winter coat’s high collar. “So, um, a-about that duel…”

“Well,” Judai began, picking up the pace and heading for the cut of blue between the buildings ahead of them. He remembered how the harbour had looked from the ferry -- like a great mirror of cold water that had been polished to an unmatched shine. “Asuka told me who won, buuuut… I’d like to hear the play-by-play from one of my favorite duelists. Oh, with bonus commentary from Ruby too, of course!”

They did reach the water together like that -- their steps even and perfectly synchronized, Johan going over each turn and pausing to let Ruby mewl out her disdain for the Ojamas or, say, growl out at the memory of a harsh counterattack. Johan’s easy, loose gestures did something to his heart. The effect was so strong, as if it were a form of magic. The good kind of magic, that is. The same sort that had unified himself and Yubel again. 

They were usually like a warm hearth, an ethereal voice. Each scale and mark over their taloned hands could seem like part of a vast constellation of details that he could lose himself in forever, because it really was that kind of love.

Johan was a spring day that rose high over a world in colour, and...that was also love, as it turned out. Different, but...love.

While he was leaning against a railing and watching a blurry cargo boat make for the horizon, Yubel unfurled themselves. With a shimmer of purple-black, they became a spirit that hovered with their back to the shoreline, their wings peaks of shadow and their proud head raised high. Their fall of lily-white hair overlaid the sky, the strands traced by that soft blue and the pale edges of clouds. Their darker strands flowed over the quiet scene. Their ever-open third eye was like a flower pressed over their skin, remaining in place above a stare in orange-green. Johan perked up as they appeared, throwing out a wave.

“Hey! So, what’d you think about the city?”

“Considering that my dear Judai has yet to run into a card thief or megalomaniac trying to tear apart the very fabric of our reality, it seems comparatively...quiet,” Yubel remarked in their dulcet tones, and Johan giggled into the collar of his coat, Ruby mewing out something like, ‘Hey, was that a compliment for us here? Johan!’ as she booped his face with her nose. 

“‘Quiet’ is a good word for it, actually,” was Johan’s response, his elbows on the railing. The breeze shoved his bangs back, and although Judai flinched from the  _ cold _ , Johan was unaffected. Yubel, of course, didn’t even react.

He was totally jealous of that.

“I believe you referred to life in this place as ‘structured’ earlier,” Yubel observed, their arms crossed and their stare flickering over to Johan again. His grin only settled in, glowing.

“Yeah, well… There are positives to that too, don’t get me wrong.”

“Why don’t you travel with us during your break?”

Judai turned around. Yubel’s profile was all steep angles and delicate curves, one set of eyelashes curled and framing a blazing iris. It was-

“That’s... _ such  _ a good idea. Yeah. Y-Yeah!” Judai blurted out, pushing off the railing and spinning in place once. Yubel, bored by the antics, rolled their eyes. “Hey, when is that? Soon, riight?”

“Ha. My term just got started, so I don’t really know my schedule yet,” Johan said casually, but Judai could see it --  _ really  _ see it -- how excited Johan was. Ruby purred away. “But… When I have a week off, I’d… I’d really love that….”

“Some chaos to complement your structure,” Yubel noted, and Judai could only beam at them. They were right, after all. This made sense. It...was right. 

He spoke without thinking, as usual. Yubel shook their head fondly, their care warming his chest.

“Pick a time and a place, and I’ll be there. One-hundred-percent,” Judai said, nodding to himself, although there was one thing he  _ probably  _ should add. He rocked back on his heels, blue sky and paper-white clouds above. “So, you know, it won’t be like the graduation party or anything… Sounds like I missed a great night, honestly.”

“It’s alright.” Blinking, he focused on Johan again. Johan nodded once. “Actually, that just made everyone more excited about running into you later.”

“Ahhh, really?”

“Yes!” Johan answered, Ruby chirping out the same. Yubel drifted closer, one hand brushing his shoulder.

“My dear, aren’t you the one always telling others through duels to trust in their bonds? I can repeat your own advice to you, if you’d like.”

“Well, you  _ can  _ do that. I won’t stop you,” Judai joked, giving them a wink, and then he took Johan’s arm again. “Although, we have a  _ lot  _ more of the city to get through, don’t we?”

“Oh, of course!” Johan replied, and so, they set off again -- footsteps falling at the same time, Johan shoving Judai’s right hand (“W-Why are you  _ so  _ cold?!”) into his own pocket and then tangling their fingers together. 

It  _ did  _ seem as though the city was waiting for them to return, and so they went right into it: getting into a couple of duels with the locals, starting a street-wide snowball fight that left them both red-faced and pushing back tears of laughter, making Yubel burst out into rare giggles when they tried on matching knit hats with pom-poms on the tops at a street stand, ordering enough food for dinner that the waiter and a sputtering Johan had to argue about if  _ that  _ many dishes would even  _ fit  _ on the table, getting crazy lost on Johan’s campus and winding up in an off-limits archive by pure chance, and a thousand-something other tiny, fluttering little moments, like fireflies spreading out over a field and parting the dark of a haunting past. 

And, yeah, he couldn’t stop smiling the entire time.

He clutched at Yubel’s phantom claw in his left pocket as he chased after Johan for the last bus across the city. Even when bolting at full-out, one-hundred-percent speed, he and Johan could still synch up, frenzied boots making the same exact ‘smack’ over the concrete. When they fell into Johan’s modern-but-kinda-empty loft apartment, it was with a lot of laughter and the heavy rustle of winter coats being thrown  _ somewhere _ . Judai took a particular glee in sling-shooting his scarf onto Johan’s coat rack, where it hung perfectly.

“Boom.”

“Nice,” Johan commented, still out-of-breath from the fact that they, for some reason, had run up all five flights of stairs. It had made sense at the time. 

It was with the same wordless, flowing understanding that they later flopped onto Johan’s mattress, and when he reached up, Yubel was there, lying on their side such that the back of his head was suddenly against their corporeal, phasing-in stomach. He could hear them whispering something to Johan, their untethered hair awash with the pulsing lights of the Crystal Beasts that darted around the space. He watched as Johan leaned in closer, whatever their words were making him break out into laughter. When Johan settled onto his back, it was with some of his wild, teal strands spread over Yubel’s chest, and his eyes slowly slid shut, his expression content. Calm. 

This had never happened before, and yet -- as Judai let himself be carried away, that combination of Yubel’s warmth and Johan’s scent dizzying -- he could have sworn something  _ like  _ it had. It felt that natural, that  _ correct. _

Some might’ve called it ‘deja vu’.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Assorted Notes:
> 
> Inspiration: This fic is roughly based off three things from the GX canon and one from VRAINS.
> 
> Deja Vu: When Johan and Judai first shake hands, they both feel a sense of 'deja vu' that isn't really expanded on in the GX anime. I'm interpreting that here as them having interacted in a past life. I also tried to mirror the emergence of the Supreme King in the anime here, namely that Jurian hardens his heart after a terrible loss.
> 
> Light: Johan has a clear affinity for the Crystal Beast cards and Rainbow Dragon, which is itself a Light monster. I'm interpreting this as Johan being more associated with the 'light' than with the 'darkness', which is Judai's domain. I was also a bit, err, interested in taking the idea of white light passing through a prism (and thus showing a rainbow) and applying it to Johan, who represents all those colours with his deck and its ace monster. ... I'm also assuming that, via duel spirit magic, the Crystal Beasts don't remember their past clearly.
> 
> Cards: Obligatory mention of how knight-like the Crystal Protector card for the Crystal Beasts looks. And, of course, it also looks a bit like Johan! I let that influence my ideas about a past life for him.
> 
> VRAINS: While I'm not going to get too into spoilers, I thought it was neat how VRAINS had characters who represented different elements. It made me think about how if anyone in GX could represent light, then who would do it best?  
> While this story is largely a result of me just...speedwriting past!life stuff for GX in March and April while I was sick, I also wrote it such that it can function later as an optional prequel for [my VRAINS/GX crossover](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22118386/chapters/52791631). ....Provided that I can finish that and get the plot to the relevant sections, haha! It's so long...  
> If I do manage to update my crossover enough, then I'll probably add this fic to a series alongside that one.
> 
> Thank you to anyone who has read this far! In all honesty, I was hesitant to upload this story at all because it is so sad in places, but I really do love this series! Thank you again.


End file.
